Sam Francis

Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York 
Private Collection
Sotheby's, New York, 11 September 1983, Lot 36
Private Collection, New York
Christie's, New York, 5 September 2000, Lot 386
Danese, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is very slightly brighter in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. The sheet is attached verso to the backing mount and undulates very slightly. The edges of the sheet are irregular, original to the work's execution. Extremely close inspection reveals a minute nick to the extreme upper edge, 5cm. from the upper right corner tip.
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Executed in 1958, a year considered to be a high point within the artist’s oeuvre, Untitled (Abstract Composition) masterfully demonstrates Francis' impeccable handling of watercolour and gouache, a medium he first experienced as a form of therapy during his three year convalescence from spinal tuberculosis.

Although widely viewed as a West-Coast artist part of the second wave of Abstract Expressionism, Sam Francis left California in 1950 to move to Paris. Duly, the swathes of jewel-like colours and all-over composition in Untitled (Abstract Composition) owe as much to Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse as they do to Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still.  When Paris’s Musée de l’Orangerie re-opened to the public in 1953, Francis discovered Monet’s Water Lilies: this transcendent experience had a long-lasting infuence on him, characterised by the floating yet dense clusters of radiant colour which would come to define his practice. In the early to mid-1950s, Francis’ sublime use of colour was deeply influenced by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, which evolved towards a more gestural execution after his first trip to Japan in 1957. Francis lived and worked in a temple in Tokyo, studying haboku (traditional Japanese flung-ink painting) and ikebana (the art of flower arrangement), both influences that are visible in the present work’s dripping splatters of watercolour and the calligraphic composition sitting atop an expanse of white - echoing the importance of void in East Asian thought. This philosophy was of tremendous importance to Francis, and he kept a studio in Japan throughout his life. 

Another consequence of Francis’ travels during this period was that he spent a lot of time in airplanes, looking down at the variegated patchwork of earth and water below him. Aerial topography with vast planes of colour became a major source of inspiration for his compositions from that period onwards, and he started using maps as source drawings for the rough outlines. In many ways, all five elements – earth, air, fire, water and void (aether) – are represented within the overarching philosophy behind the present work. Francis has said that “colour is light on fire. Each colour is the result of burning, for each substance burns with a particular colour” (Sam Francis cited in: Jan Butterfield, Sam Francis, Los Angeles 1980, pp. 9-10) As such, Untitled (Abstract Composition) achieves an harmonious symphony of line and color, void and form, radiance and opacity.