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Sam Francis was born in 1923 in San Mateo, California. He received his BA from the University of California in Berkeley in 1949 where he studied botany, psychology and medicine. Little did he know at the time that ten years later, he would receive his Masters in Fine Arts from the same university.
His career as an artist began in a way that might be called "by accident". A plane crash that occurred while Francis was in training as a pilot for the Army Air Corps injured his spine and developed into spinal tuberculosis. Francis was in casts and braces fror the better part of the next two years and began painting due to his confinement. His interest grew and he was determined to become an artist.
After a transfer to a San Francisco hospital, Francis was visited by noted Bay Area artist, David Park. Like Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko, two giants of modern American art, Park taught at the California School of Fine Arts in the late forties. It was Park who introduced Francis to the art of Klee, Miró and Picasso. More importantly, however, he exposed him to Abstract Expressionism.
By the age of 27, Francis was already at the forefront of this movement. In the 1940's, the art scene in San Francisco was second only to New York. By moving regularly between America and France, Francis provided an important link between American Abstract Expressionism and the beginnings of informal art in Europe. Francis's work contained both the pure abstraction of the New York school and the poetic and lyrical elements of their European counterparts. He was well respected on both sides of the Atlantic.
Highlights of the Elins Eagles-Smith exhibition include the painting on canvas, "Noldis Paint Out". This 42" x 32" canvas is pictured in the catalogue from the exhibition, "Pierre Matisse and his Artists" from the Pierpont Morgan Library and is a wonderful example of Francis's instinctive understanding of the way that nature behaves. Organic forms in brilliant color move to the edge of the |
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