Samuel Lewis Francis (June 25, 1923, San Mateo, California – November 4, 1994, Santa Monica, California)

Considered one of the premier colorists of the twentieth century, Sam Francis is best known for dramatic, lushly painted works comprised of vivid pools of color, thinly applied. Drips, gestures, and splatters of paint in his work have led many critics to identify him as a second-generation Abstract Expressionist, but Francis has also been compared to Color Field artists on the basis of large, fluid sections of paint that seem to extend beyond the confines of the pictorial surfaCE

In 1964, the influential art critic Clement Greenberg included Francis in his celebrated exhibition Post-Painterly Abstraction at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In the catalogue, Greenberg described Post-Painterly Abstraction as both being related to and distinct from Abstract Expressionism. Greenberg wrote, “By contrast with the interweaving of light and dark gradations in the typical Abstract Expressionist picture, all the artists in this show move towards a physical openness of design, or towards linear clarity, or towards both.”