Abstract Expressionism

Sam Francis (1923-1994) an Abstract Expressionist
Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, CA in 1923.
Francis majored first in botany at the University of California at Berkeley, then in psychology and medicine. World War II interrupted his studies, and in 1943 he joined the Army Air Corps as a fighter pilot. Hospitalized after an emergency landing during a 1944 training flight near Tucson, Francis began painting as a form of therapy .
He returned to U.C. Berkeley to study painting and art history, graduating with a B.A. in 1949 and an M.A. a year later.
He was also educated at Atelier Fernand Leger, Paris, France.
For Francis painting involved transformation of the four ancient elements: earth, water, air, and fire. In his paintings fire appears as bursts of color. Air is the space in which fire emerges. Water is the flow of forms that allows color areas to coexist and intermingle. Fire and air are united by color. The birth of color is not possible without uniting pairs of opposites. For Sam Francis, the power of art lay not in its superficial effects but in the ways it resonates in the soul.
In 1944, Sam Francis developed spinal tuberculosis. This Illness for Sam Francis allowed him the ability to go inside his mind and create such masterpieces.
Francis settled in Santa Monica, California, in 1962, while maintaining a studio in Japan.
In 1984 he founded the Lapis Press, a major publisher of books on the visual arts and philosophy, as well as a foundation dedicated to the research and support of alternative medicine. He died in California in 1994.


Sam Francis has received worldwide recognition for his artistic ability and has been the recipient of numerous awards for his incredible mastery of painting and expression. He was awarded first prize at the International Biennial Exhibition of Prints in Tokyo, Japan in 1962. A year later he was awarded the Tat Mus, Dunn International Prize in London, England. That same year, he also won the Tamarind Fel prize at a prestigious show in Albuquerque, NM.

His artwork is on display in public and private collections throughout the United States, and in numerous countries throughout the world, fetching exceptionally high prices.
Francis’s works are in the collections of institutions around the world, including The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the NY National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.;Guggenheim Museum, NY Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, Japan; and the Tate Gallery, London.
National Museum of Western Art, Japan Albright Art Gallery, Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland ...

(PLease Login to see the complete biography.)