Sam Francis

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Sam Francis 1968

Sam Francis (actually Samuel Lewis Francis ; born June 25, 1923 in San Mateo , California , † November 4, 1994 in Santa Monica , California) was an important American painter and printmaker . His work is assigned to abstract expressionism or color field painting .

life and work

Before he found his artistic calling, Francis studied botany , medicine and psychology at the University of California at Berkeley from 1941 to 1943 . He then signed up for the following two years as a soldier in the American Air Force. Towards the end of the Second World War he suffered serious injuries to the spine in a plane crash, which forced him to spend many years in hospitals and clinics. During this time he came into contact with painting, which never let go of him.

After his recovery, Francis began studying art history and the visual arts at his old university from 1948 to 1950. During this time he was particularly influenced by the abstract expressionists Mark Rothko , Arshile Gorky and especially by Clyfford Still . After successfully completing his studies, Francis visited Paris and established himself there permanently. Numerous artist contacts, especially with the circle around the painter and sculptor Jean-Paul Riopelle , shaped his style, which made him one of the most important representatives of Tachism . He became known for his technique of letting colors flow into one another in rivulets of different strengths on the painting surface, which then mixed together to sometimes large splotches of color. In 1952 he received his first solo exhibition in Paris at the “Galérie du Dragon”. There he met Muriel Goodwin, whom he later married.

In 1957 Francis undertook a trip around the world, which among other things brought him to Japan for several months ; There he executed his first large-format mural painting as part of a commissioned work. He installed such, sometimes oversized wall paintings in a later creative phase u. a. also in the Kunsthalle Basel or in the New York Chase Manhattan Bank . In 1959 Sam Francis took part in the 5th São Paulo Biennale and in the documenta II in Kassel .

After a period of restlessness with studios in Paris, Bern , Tokyo and New York, which drove him through the world's cities, Francis returned to California in 1962 and settled in Santa Monica. In 1964 he took part in the 32nd Venice Biennale and in documenta III . In the 1970s, the now established artist turned to action painting , one of whose most prominent representatives he is counted. During this time he also began to be interested in other art techniques - lithography , monotype , etching .

In 1988 Francis moved into a residential and studio building in Inverness , California. An order placed in 1992 to create a large mural for the German Bundestag in Bonn was rejected.

Sam Francis belonged to the circle of friends and acquaintances of the art collector and patron Theodor Ahrenberg . Shortly before his death in 1994, Francis was elected a member ( NA ) of the National Academy of Design in New York .

In addition to his art, Sam Francis was also involved in the peaceful fight against the American Vietnam War . As a result of his social and environmental commitment, the artist founded the Sam Francis Medical Research Center in 1987 , which conducts research into the causes of diseases caused by environmental damage.

In 2009 some of his paintings, which were at the time in a warehouse in a Norwegian gallery, were stolen and sold to a Dutch gallery owner. The fence was arrested in cooperation with the German customs and Dutch and Norwegian authorities.

Sam Francis was married five times, u. a. with the artists Mako Idemitsu and Teruko Yokoi . The daughter Kayo comes from the marriage with Yokoi, the sons Osamu and Shingo from the marriage with Idemitsu . Teruko Yokoi now lives in Bern , Idemitsu in Tokyo .

Sam Francis has been exhibited in numerous renowned museums and galleries around the world. a. in Germany in the Samuelis Baumgarte Galerie Bielefeld in 2009 and 2011 in the Galerie Thomas Modern, Munich. Since 1980 he was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

literature

  • Sam Francis. Gallery Delaive, Amsterdam 2003. [Exhibition catalog]
  • Marian Winsryg & Jerry Aistrip (Eds.): Sam Francis. Color is the essence of it all . Sosin, Santa Monica 2003, ISBN 0-9744072-0-8 [monograph on an exhibition. at Santa Monica College, California October 11 - December 4, 2003]
  • Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (Hrsg.): Insights. The 20th Century in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf , Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern-Ruit 2000, ISBN 3-7757-0853-7
  • William C. Agee: Sam Francis - Paintings 1947-1992 . California Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles 1999, ISBN 0914357654
  • Sam Francis: les années parisiennes 1950 - 1961 . National Gallery of Jeu de Paumes, 1995/96. [Exhibition catalog]
  • Richard Fernhout: Sam Francis . Delaive, Amsterdam 1996.
  • Ingrid Mössinger (Ed.): Sam Francis. The Shadow of Colors . Edition Stemmle, Kilchberg 1995. [exhibition catalog]
  • Pontus Hulten : The Monotypes of Sam Francis [Les Monotypes de Sam Francis / The Monotypes of Sam Francis] . Cantz publishing house, Stuttgart 1994.
  • Pontus Hulten: Sam Francis. Catalog book for the exhibition of the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany . Edition Cantz, Stuttgart 1993. [English edition]
  • Sam Francis: Lithographs 1963 . Kornfeld & Klipstein , Bern 1965.
  • Sam Francis: Oeuvres de 1951 a 1960 . D. Benador Gallery, Geneva 1962.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "F" / Francis, Sam NA 1994 ( Memento of the original from January 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on June 22, 2015) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalacademy.org
  2. ↑ Securing cash from art theft , Zoll Online, December 29, 2010 ( Memento from January 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Members: Sam Francis. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 28, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Francis, Sam
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Francis, Samuel Lewis (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter and printmaker
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH San Mateo , California
DATE OF DEATH November 4, 1994
Place of death Santa Monica , California