Sam Francis (1923-1994)
The Tuttleman Collection
Sam Francis (1923-1994)

China Nine Puffs

Details
Sam Francis (1923-1994)
China Nine Puffs
signed and dated 'Sam Francis 1974' (on the reverse)
acrylic on canvas
86 5/8 x 110 1/4 in. (220 x 280 cm.)
Painted in 1974.
Provenance
André Emmerich Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1985
Literature
D. Burchett-Lere and W. Agee, Sam Francis: Catalogue Raisonné of Canvas and Panel Paintings, 1946–1994, Berkeley, 2011, no. SFF.635 (illustrated).
W. Agee, Sam Francis: Paintings 1947–1990, Los Angeles, 1999, p. 149, fig. 12 (illustrated).
Sam Francis: From the Idemitsu Collection, 2002, exh. cat., Toyama, Museum of Modern Art, p. 122 (illustrated).
Exhibited
Tokyo, Minami Gallery, Sam Francis, April 1974, p. 2 (illustrated).
New York, André Emmerich Gallery, Large-Scale Master Paintings and Sculpture, February-March 1984.
Tokyo, Minami Gallery, Dedication Kusuo Shimizu and Minami Gallery, March 1985, pp. 97 and 149 (illustrated).
Rome, Galleria il Gabbiano, Sam Francis, November 1998–February 1999, pp. 25 and 32 (illustrated).
Chicago, Richard Gray Gallery, Sam Francis: The Edge, April–June 2000, p. 40 (illustrated).

Brought to you by

Joanna Szymkowiak
Joanna Szymkowiak

Lot Essay

This work is included in the Sam Francis: Catalogue Raisonné of Canvas and Panel Paintings, published by the University of California Berkeley Press (UC Press: 2011) under the No. SFF.635 and is also registered in the archives of the Sam Francis Foundation with the No. SFP74-5. This information is subject to change as scholarship continues by the Sam Francis Foundation.

“His bare feet prancing about over a white canvas, this angel creates a garden of flowers in prism-like colours, as if portraying peerless visions of paradise. Yet the flower garden is criss-crossed with a lattice of fine lines, like a spider’s web trembling with fear, like veins of blood. Works such as these may be easier to understand if we think of them as poems executed in paint, and Sam Francis as a poet of art.”

Mamoru Yonekura, quoted in The Recent Works of Sam Francis, Ogawa Art Foundation, 1990, p. 5-6.

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