Sam Francis

Biography

Sam Francis, one of the first American artists of the post-war generation to gain international importance early on, was born in San Mateo, California, in 1923. After beginning studies in botany, medicine and psychology, he decided to join the American Air Force. A serious injury to the spine at the end of the Second World War led to long hospital stays. It was during this time that he first came into contact with painting and, after his recovery in 1948, began studying art history and fine arts at the University of California at Berkeley. During this time he was particularly influenced by the work of the abstract expressionists Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Clyfford Still. In 1950 he went to Paris, where he belonged to the circle around Jean-Paul Riopelle and studied Tachism as well as the great French colorists Claude Monet, Henri Matisse and Wassily Kandinsky. At that time TIME Magazine called him "the hottest American painter in Paris these days". In 1957, a trip around the world took him to Japan, among other places, where he painted his first large mural. Later, further monumental paintings followed at the Kunsthalle Basel or the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York. In 1959, Sam Francis took part in the 5th São Paulo Biennale and documenta II in Kassel. In the same year he met Kiki Kogelnik in Paris, with whom he entered into a relationship and subsequently persuaded her to go to America with him in 1962. They parted ways, she stayed in New York, he returned to his home state California and settled in Santa Monica after years of travel, with studios in Bern, Tokyo and Mexico City, among others. In the 1970s, he turned completely to Action Painting, of which he is considered one of the main representatives, his works being the most colorful of those of the Abstract Expressionists. Shortly before his death in 1994, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Design in New York. Sam Francis is one of the most important American artists of his generation.