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93

Francis, Sam - Original Lithograph hand signed and numbered

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:1,600.00 USD Estimated At:1,900.00 - 2,500.00 USD
Francis, Sam - Original Lithograph hand signed and numbered
ALL ITEMS GUARANTEED AS DESCRIBED

CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
ARTIST: Sam Francis
TITLE: Untitled
MEDIUM: Original lithograph hand signed and numbered
SIZE: 22 x 30
EDITION: from the edition of 30
CONDITION: EXCELLENT
RETAIL/GALLERY PRICE: $5,500


American (1923 - 1994)

Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California in 1923. He entered the University of California at Berkeley as botany major, then switched to medicine before leaving in 1943 to join the Army Air Corps. During his time in the military he suffered injuries that led to spinal tuberculosis, and began to paint during his period of recovery. Eventually he returned to UC Berkeley to earn his bachelor’s and masters degree in painting and art history in 1949.
Francis’ career began in Paris in the 1950’s. His work from this period is airy and light-filled; influenced by Japanese painting, he opened up an empty space in the middle of the canvas and enlarged the scale of his works. Francis’ paintings during the 1960’s began to emphasize the edges of the canvas. During this time he also worked in watercolor and was largely responsible for the revival of color lithography. By the early 1970’s his paintings became more minimal and abstract, and subsequent periods of the 70’s and 80’s are more structured and heavy. Throughout his career he traveled extensively, working and exhibiting in Tokyo, Switzerland, Paris and the United States. In 1962 he settled in Santa Monica, CA and established a lithography workshop there. Sam Francis holds a place in art history as the youngest of the first generation of abstract expressionists.
Sometimes considered a second-generation Abstract Expressionist, Francis’ work of the 1950’s and 1960’s was abstract, luminous and painterly rather than gestural. Influenced by the works of Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still, Francis’ “signature” paintings of the early 1950’s are overlays of serial but asymmetrical biomorphic forms saturated with color. In the mid-1950’s, Francis began to paint fields of various sized clusters of cell-like shapes usually in blue, yellow, and red on a white ground. By the late 1950’s Francis concentrated on large mural sized works dominated by white and bordered by colorful clusters of forms. This remained his vocabulary throughout his career but by the 1970’s and 1980’s a greater degree of structure emerged. In addition to monumental and easel-size paintings he produced a significant oeuvre of works on paper and prints.
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