Sam Francis

163 SAM FRANCIS Saraband, 1948-49 oil on canvas 32 x 24 in. (81.3 x 61 cm.) Signed "Sam Francis" lower right; further signed and titled "Sam Francis 'Saraband'" along the stretcher bar. This work is included in the Sam Francis: Catalogue Raisonné of Canvas and Panel Paintings, 1946–1994, with number SFF.54, edited by Debra Burchett-Lere and published by the University of California Press 2011 and alternatively registered with the Sam Francis Foundation under archive number SFP48-019. Estimate $120,000 - 180,000 163

Lot Description Sam Francis (1923-1994) Untitled stamped with signature and stamped twice with the Estate of Sam Francis stamp (on the reverse) acrylic on canvas 28¾ x 23½ in. (73 x 59.6 cm.) Painted circa 1984. Provenance Estate of the artist Gallery Delaive, Amsterdam Private collection, Europe Pre-Lot Text Property from the Estate of Renee Rupert Granville-Grossman Literature Sam Francis, Toyama, Japan, Museum of Modern Art, 1988, exh. cat. (illustrated on the inside front cover). D. Burchett-Lere, Sam Francis: Catalogue Raisonné, Berkeley, 2011, no. SFF976 (illustrated in color). Exhibited Amsterdam, Gallery Delaive and Amstelveen, Museum Jan van der Togt, Sam Francis: Remember 1923-1994, November 2004-January 2005, pp. 112-113 (illustrated in color).

Sam Francis (San Mateo, CA 1923–1994 Santa Monica, CA) Untitled (drawing for sculpture), on reverse signed, dated Sam Francis 1966, and stamped Sam Francis Estate, acrylic on paper, 82 x 53 cm, framed, (PP) The work is registered with the Samuel L. Francis Foundation, Glendale under the no.SF66–110 (written confirmation available). Provenance: Gallery Delaive, Amsterdam, purchased directly from the Sam Francis Estate Collection Robert Sandelson, London

Lot Description Sam Francis (1923-1994) Untitled signed and dated 'Sam Francis 1958' (on the reverse) oil on canvas 43½ x 58½ in. (110.4 x 148.5 cm.) Painted in 1958. Provenance Sidney Janis Gallery, New York Private collection, New York Galerie Beyeler, Basel James Goodman Gallery, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1988 Pre-Lot Text Andy Williams: An American Legend Literature S. Sheehan, "Andy Williams in Branson: The Entertainer's Art-Filled Retreat in the Missouri Music Capital," Architectural Digest, December 1999, p. 185 (illustrated in color). D. Burchett-Lere, ed., Sam Francis: Catalogue Raisonné of Canvas and Panel Paintings 1946-1994, Berkeley, 2011, cat. no. 248, DVD I (illustrated in color). Exhibited New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, A Selection of 20th Century Art of 3 Generations, November-December 1964, no. 20 (illustrated). Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Landschaften und Horizonte, October-December 1987, no. 16. View Lot Notes > In Untitled, a dense network of jewel tones unfolds from the top of the canvas like a tumbling bouquet of petals. Painted in 1958, Untitled was completed at the end of Sam Francis' eight-year-long stay in Paris, when he began preparing for his move back to New York. The artist paints with the gesture and drama of the Abstract Expressionists, yet draws on the artistic traditions of East and West, which he saw on his significant recent travels. In fact, the work coincides with his second round the world trip in 1958 to Rome, Saigon, Tokyo and California. In Untitled, his diverse inspirations fluidly merge to form an exuberant and layered chromatic harmony, in a style completely his own. Francis paints a central floret of golden yellow, surrounded by layered notes of jade green, black and aubergine. The painter forgoes thick, textural impasto for bright, thin washes of oil paint that drip and spray freely across the canvas. Though the artist is known for his luminous color pairings, Francis uses bold, fiery hues to increase the picture's energetic tone. The 1958 work's pulsating color appears even more dramatic when set next to expanses of white canvas. Though these spaces appear untouched, Francis activates these areas with tiny drips and sheer glazes. Along the left side of the picture, brushy dots and splatters of paint align to form a subtle diagonal structure. The elusive line only becomes apparent when viewed in the context of other 1958 pictures, such as Museum of Modern Art's Moby Dick. Its nuanced arrangement appears entirely organic, as if Francis' brushstrokes have found their own natural order. With its bursts of yellow and shadowy tones of blues and purples, Untitled pays tribute to the flickering color of French Impressionist landscapes. Though painted his final summer in Paris, the work recalls his early months in the city when he first saw Monet's Waterlilies in the Musée de l'Orangerie. Alluding to his commitments to both vivid color and formal abstraction, the artist declared, "I make the late Monet pure" (S. Francis, quoted in Sam Francis: Paintings 1947-1990, exh. cat., Los Angeles, 1999, p. 20). The 1958 work was completed at his studio on Rue d'Arcueil, which he acquired just a few years earlier. The larger space allowed him to expand his painterly format to monumental canvases. Francis also amended his visual vocabulary, as the small divisions of his earlier pictures' were hardly suited for vast pictorial space. In Untitled, the artist's loose, open shapes seem informed by his recent monumental commissions for Toyko's Sogetsu School and Basel's Kunsthalle--not only in their painterly marks, but in their intonations of vast space with grand voids of white canvas. Deeply interested in white's emblematic significance, Francis "reflects on the symbolism of white as the imperial color of magnificence and nobility, as the color of Great Jove, the albatross, and the veil of Christianity's deity, but he also notes that it is the color of evil, transcendent horror, and great panic, the shroud of death and the fog of ghosts" (P. Selz, Sam Francis, New York, 1982, p. 62). In Untitled, the artist situates his imagery along the upper left edges of the work allowing for large openings of empty space. His asymmetrical arrangement distinctly recalls Zen painters' "one-corner" arrangements. According to curator Arnold Rüdlinger, his paintings of the late 1950s "show he knows how to employ silence and the void of Oriental painting as artistic means of expression" (A. Rüdlinger, quoted in ibid, p. 65). The 1958 work's unbridled gesture and thin washes of color also recall the free, calligraphic strokes of Japanese ink paintings, specifically those by Sesshu Toyo. Like Francis, Sesshu balances delicate details with emphatic marks, softly graduated washes with monochrome ink splatters. The spontaneous motions of Sesshu's Haboku paintings draw an unlikely link to the similarly visceral, bravura marks of the Action Painters. Indeed, Untitled illustrates a new painterly energy; as if anticipating his return to New York City, Francis uses the formal language of its post-war painters. The 1958 work shows a special affinity to Clyfford Still's pictures, which similarly juxtapose marigold and black in jagged, irregular shapes. After serving in World War II, Francis returned to University of California, Berkeley to study painting and art history in 1948-50. During these years, Still had a strong presence within the San Francisco art scene, teaching at the California Institute of Art and exhibiting around the city--his first retrospective show was given by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1947. In Untitled, Francis distinguishes himself from his contemporaries through his dynamic range of painterly marks and thin washes of luminescent color.

* Sam Francis (American, 1923-1995) Untitled, c. 1986 acrylic on canvas signed Sam Francis (verso) 48 x 36 inches. Estimate $ 80,000-120,000 Estate of Sam Francis No. SFP86-510 Property from the Estate of Mr. Ivan Bowen II, Wayzata, Minnesota Provenance: Private Collection, Los Angeles, California (acquired directly from the artist) Gerhard Wurzer Gallery, Houston, Texas, 1999 Please contact us for a full condition report.