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Lot Essay
‘Stars always appear when the blue is fully saturated’ – Sam Francis
‘Colour is light on fire. Each colour is the result of burning, for each substance burns with a particular colour’ – Sam Francis
An iridescent tessellation of blue swells across Sam Francis’ stunning early painting Blue and Black. The work’s shimmering, jewel-like surface evokes a sparkling pool of water, a diaphanous cascade from a spring-fed grotto. Between the limitless black border and buoyant blue, Francis navigates a delicate balance, and in his translucent layers, there exists an ethereal presence flooding the canvas. Such mastery of paint impressed the art critic Peter Selz, who wrote, ‘With his trident brush, he has caused springs to well up on the dry support of the canvas or paper. In water, everything is in suspension, as it is in the sky, in space. His work is about suspension and levitation as opposed to gravity’ (P. Selz, Sam Francis, New York, 1975, pp. 13-14). Blue and Black is among the first works to highlight the blue that was to become Francis’ signature hue. For the artist, colour was a ‘series of harmonies everywhere in the universe’ and he believed blue to be a life-sustaining force, both aquatic and celestial (S. Francis, quoted in P. Hulten, Sam Francis, Stuttgart 1993, p. 38).
Painted in 1954 and held in the same collection for over four decades, Blue and Black represents a pivotal moment for Francis, who had moved to Paris only four years prior. These years were marked by an exhilarating experimentation: in the French capital, Francis found a wellspring of inspiration and, captivated by the luminous paintings of Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse as well as Claude Monet’s magnificent Nymphaes, a vibrant saturation entered his canvases. Moving away from the muted tones of his earlier paintings, Francis brought a sensuousness to his compositions, making a decisive break from the gestural works of the Abstract Expressionists that he had left behind in the United States. The works produced during these years catapulted Francis into international acclaim; a year after Blue and Black was created, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired a painting by the artist, the first by Francis to enter a public collection. With his ongoing interest in the materiality of colour, Francis was anointed the heir of Impressionism: describing his lifelong exploration, art historian Pierre Schneider, who knew Francis in Paris, claimed that it was not self-expression that interested the artist, but ultimately, a ‘conditioning of space, so that the viewers would find new energies when experiencing the work’ (P. Schneider, in conversation with Peter Selz, 1972, reprinted in P. Selz, Sam Francis, New York 1975, p. 42). Indeed, many of Francis’ best canvases seem to escape earth’s gravitational pull, and in the liquid tones of Blue and Black, space is weightless.
‘Colour is light on fire. Each colour is the result of burning, for each substance burns with a particular colour’ – Sam Francis
An iridescent tessellation of blue swells across Sam Francis’ stunning early painting Blue and Black. The work’s shimmering, jewel-like surface evokes a sparkling pool of water, a diaphanous cascade from a spring-fed grotto. Between the limitless black border and buoyant blue, Francis navigates a delicate balance, and in his translucent layers, there exists an ethereal presence flooding the canvas. Such mastery of paint impressed the art critic Peter Selz, who wrote, ‘With his trident brush, he has caused springs to well up on the dry support of the canvas or paper. In water, everything is in suspension, as it is in the sky, in space. His work is about suspension and levitation as opposed to gravity’ (P. Selz, Sam Francis, New York, 1975, pp. 13-14). Blue and Black is among the first works to highlight the blue that was to become Francis’ signature hue. For the artist, colour was a ‘series of harmonies everywhere in the universe’ and he believed blue to be a life-sustaining force, both aquatic and celestial (S. Francis, quoted in P. Hulten, Sam Francis, Stuttgart 1993, p. 38).
Painted in 1954 and held in the same collection for over four decades, Blue and Black represents a pivotal moment for Francis, who had moved to Paris only four years prior. These years were marked by an exhilarating experimentation: in the French capital, Francis found a wellspring of inspiration and, captivated by the luminous paintings of Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse as well as Claude Monet’s magnificent Nymphaes, a vibrant saturation entered his canvases. Moving away from the muted tones of his earlier paintings, Francis brought a sensuousness to his compositions, making a decisive break from the gestural works of the Abstract Expressionists that he had left behind in the United States. The works produced during these years catapulted Francis into international acclaim; a year after Blue and Black was created, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired a painting by the artist, the first by Francis to enter a public collection. With his ongoing interest in the materiality of colour, Francis was anointed the heir of Impressionism: describing his lifelong exploration, art historian Pierre Schneider, who knew Francis in Paris, claimed that it was not self-expression that interested the artist, but ultimately, a ‘conditioning of space, so that the viewers would find new energies when experiencing the work’ (P. Schneider, in conversation with Peter Selz, 1972, reprinted in P. Selz, Sam Francis, New York 1975, p. 42). Indeed, many of Francis’ best canvases seem to escape earth’s gravitational pull, and in the liquid tones of Blue and Black, space is weightless.