Sam Francis
Powerful, gestural, monochromatic drawings
The very essence of Abstract Expressionism
In conjunction with the Sam Francis Foundation and in celebration of Sam Francis' 100 birthday and his current exhibition at LACMA museum
Exhibition dates: July 1 – August 27, 2023
Rare & unique monoprints from the Sam Francis Foundations Archive's
An exhibition in conjunction with the Sam Francis Foundation.
Exhibition dates: Mar 9 – May 9, 2021
California born abstract expressionist painter Sam Francis, is regarded as one of the 20th century's leading interpreters of light and color. Sam Francis maintained studios in Bern, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo, making him the first post World War II American painter whose reach was truly international. Throughout a long and prolific career, Francis created thousands of paintings as well as works on paper, original prints, and monotypes. His work holds references to Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Chinese and Japanese art, Impressionism, and his own Bay Area roots.
Sam Francis’ later life was divided between Santa Monica and West Marin. He is buried in a small cemetery in Olema, Marin County.
Essay by George Page
Master Printer for Sam Francis 1973-1996 Santa Monica, CA.
"Sam's early lithographs of 1960, printed by Emile Matthieu in Zurich, formed the basis of his interest and love of the Original Lithographic Process, invented in 1796. It is with Matthieu that Sam learns the principles of drawing on stones and lithographic plates. In 1969 Sam purchased a used litho press from the Los Angeles Tamarind workshop and established the "Litho Shop " in Santa Monica to further explore the mysteries and rewards of hand printed color prints. The Litho Shop was not a financial enterprise, but rather a private investigation into experimenting with various drawing techniques in a very relaxed atmosphere without any commercial pressures. It also served as an oasis from his home based painting studio in Santa Monica canyon. Thoughts and ideas that were generated in the painting studio, suddenly reappeared at the Litho Shop as color lithographs.
Drawing on plates and stones with the black liquid called "tusche", is directly related to traditional Japanese "Sumi" images, in which powerful strokes of liquid black ink are drawn on paper with a very bold and forceful stroke. This technique was the basis for all of his original lithographs.
In lithography; liquid tusch is the most difficult technique because the heavy grease content of the tusche tends to produce solid black images, lacking in detail. Sam always wanted detail in the drawings....this is called "reticulation". To achieve consistent detailed results required exhaustive test
drawings and their matching chemical etches to stabilize the drawn image. Because of these extensive test prints, I was able to control the finished results by always carefully mixing the tusche in three separate bowls...lite-medium and dark mixtures. As a result of these tests, I knew the etches required before the artist entered the shop.
After the tusche drawing had completely dried, a tracing of the major image was transferred to three additional stones. Sam would then add three complimentary drawings to accent the key plate. The completed stones were then designated for the red-yellow-blue-green inks. Sam's drawing process was always supremely confident, he never hesitated, or felt the need to redraw or delete any part of the image.
Normally, following a color proofing session, and edition printing; a second version of the original color plates was editioned using only black inks, with each black ink being tinted with silver, red, blue, green and transparency ink. These dense and overlapping images were in many instances, Sam's preference over the original color images!"