Prints & Multiples 
10 January 2024
Prints & Multiples 
271

Sam Francis 1923–1994

Point (SF-249)

1975
lithograph on Arches 88 image: 36 h × 29½ w in (91 × 75 cm) sheet: 36 h × 36 w in (91 × 91 cm)
estimate: $1,000–1,500
result: $2,016
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The proceeds from the sale of this work will benefit the Sam Francis Foundation’s ongoing legacy projects, including educational programming, residencies and scholarship development.
Signed and numbered to lower edge ‘AP IV Sam Francis’. Publisher's stamp to verso 'Gemini G.E.L. Los Angeles, CA'. This work is artist's proof 4 of 10 apart from the edition of 26 printed and published by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles with their blindstamps.
provenance: Collection of the Sam Francis Foundation
literature: Gemini 709 | Lembark L188

This work will ship from Los Angeles, California.

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The proceeds from the sale of this work will benefit the Sam Francis Foundation's ongoing work supporting the artist's creative legacy through exhibitions, educational events, special projects, articles, and archival explorations.

Sam Francis, In Living Monochrome

The Black & White Works of Sam Francis

Named by gallerist Jack Rutberg as Sam Francis's “most nuanced and important works,” the artist’s monochromatic paintings and prints allow for precious insight into the process and vision of an artist widely celebrated for his use of color. “Color is light on fire,” Francis famously said—but, as the Lapis Press noted on the occasion of their 2019 exhibition Sam Francis: Black & White Abstract, “Light and dark, as much as color and pigment, play a vital role in the printmaking of Sam Francis.” Indeed, Francis's first exhibition in Paris was entirely comprised of monochromatic works. Rutberg conceptualizes Francis's black and white prints as evidence of the artist's “commitment to distilling his compositions,” and notes that “Even though he produced color prints, Francis would proof his works in black and white to assess their visual impact. Some of these plates were occasionally used to create limited editions in black and white.” Without, or with only the subtlest traces of, pigment, such works make it possible to absorb the forms that so inspired Francis, like calligraphy and the cosmos, at their most unadulterated.

Watch Jack Rutberg discuss Sam Francis’s monochromatic works:

 

The idea of relationship was always crucial to Sam: the relationship between dark and light, soul and matter, life and death, and an infinity of possible combinations. As he writes in his notebook: “Depth of All,” or “Why do we say shades of colors?—shadows of colors—who has seen pure white?” His preferred term “shadow” means the interplay and integration of light and dark, of substance and immateriality. But “shadow” also means a reflection—a thing see-ing itself.

Robert Shapazian in Sam Francis: The Shadow of Colors

Sam Francis 1923–1994

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Native Californian painter and printmaker Sam Francis is most noted for his use of dynamic forms saturated with intense color amid spaces of white. Francis studied medicine and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, but joined the US Air Force in 1943. He first began painting during a prolonged hospitalization for spinal tuberculosis and, upon his return to the United States, he pursued his art education at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco and then again at U.C. Berkeley.

Francis’s early works were strongly influenced by both Abstract Expressionism and French Impressionism, compelling him to move to Paris in 1950. Francis remained in France for ten years, quickly earning himself a reputation as a “tâchiste” (meaning “stain” or “splash”) painter who preferred to accentuate brilliant color through painterly strokes. This time abroad was highly productive and successful, and his works were featured in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art as well as the Bienal de São Paolo.

In 1961, Francis returned to California where he lived and worked for the remainder of his life. In addition to contemporary Western influences, he would also adopt an interplay of negative space and bursts of color that can be largely attributed to his study of Japanese calligraphy. Francis’s work has been exhibited in multitudes of international galleries and museums, including the Tate Modern, London; the Museum of Modern Art, Japan; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

Auction Results Sam Francis

Sam Francis

Untitled (SF56-003)

estimate: $100,000–150,000

result: $125,000

Sam Francis

Untitled (SF84-002)

estimate: $80,000–120,000

result: $122,500

Sam Francis

Untitled (SFP83-71)

estimate: $30,000–50,000

result: $69,300

Sam Francis

Untitled

estimate: $50,000–70,000

result: $62,500

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