Sam Francis

Estimate

400,000 - 600,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

Sam Francis
Untitled (Study for Chase Manhattan Memorial)
oil on paper mounted on canvas
73 1/4 by 37 1/2 in. 187.3 by 95.5 cm.
Executed in 1959, this work is registered with the Sam Francis Estate as archive number SF59-412.

Provenance

Estate of the artist
American Contemporary Art Gallery, Munich
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Exhibited

Los Angeles, Manny Silverman Gallery, Sam Francis in New York 1958-1960, May - June 1997, p. 31, illustrated in color
New York, Lawrence Rubin - Greenberg Van Doren Fine Art, Sam Francis: Paintings and Works on Paper from the 1950s, November - December 1999, n.p., illustrated in color

Literature

American Contemporary Art Gallery, Yearbook 2005/2006, Munich, 2006, p. 11, illustrated in color

Catalogue Note

Sam Francis was a California based second generation Abstract Expressionist who was greatly influenced by his travels throughout Europe and Japan. Celebrated for his colorful and highly saturated compositions, the present work, Untitled (study for Chase Manhattan Memorial) of 1959, possesses a great degree of sophistication and balance of composition. The luminous passages of color illustrated Francis’ theory that “Color is the real substance for me, the real underlying thing which drawings and lines are not.” (Buffalo, New York, Albright-Knox Gallery, Sam Francis Paintings: 1947-1972, 1972, p.18) The present work, a study for the Chase Manhattan Mural (a thirty-three foot wide work realized in 1959) echoes the influence of fellow colorists such as Mark Rothko and Clifford Still. Francis completed the Tokyo Mural in 1957 and three Basel Murals in 1956-58. This three year period produced incredibly rich and sophisticated work.

In a poignant description of this study for the Chase Manhattan Mural, William C. Agree writes: "Paint here creates a wall of glorious color, primary hues inflected by green, suggesting the radiance of a stained-glass window, worthy of comparison with Matisse's cutouts as well as his windows at the Chapel of the Rosary in Venice. This painting recalls Francis's credo that ‘Colors are intensities....color is a firing of the eye,’ and that color is an inherently powerful substance, something in its own right that painting and drawing are not. Here, we can see how Francis works out of the material, letting it spread and expand, in the manner of Van Gogh and also Hans Hofmann. Untitled (study for Chase Manhattan Memorial) shows us the color field art of Sam Francis: large, clear shapes, with the intense red locating and holding the center, the point around which our eye and emotion move.” (Exh. Cat., New York, Lawrence Rubin Gallery, Sam Francis: Paintings & Works on Paper from the 1950s, 1999, p. 9)