SAM FRANCIS | Untitled (9)

Gallery Ishibashi
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Tokyo, Minami Gallery, Sam Francis: You the Yellow, 16 November - 5 December 1964

This work is executed on 9 different sheets of paper constituting a portfolio. The sheets present some traces of wear in some areas, most notably along the edges. Faint stains are visible in places. The edges of the sheets of paper are slightly wavy and undulated. Tape residue is visible in places. This work is in good condition. Please refer to the contemporary department for additional images.
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Sam Francis et Shuzo Takiguchi Parmi les artistes Européens et Américains de sa génération, Sam Francis est peut-être celui qui noua les liens les plus forts avec le Japon. Les séjours réguliers qu’il entreprit à partir des années 1950 et pendant une longue partie de sa vie nourrirent son travail et donnèrent naissance à de nombreuses créations, parfois en collaboration avec des artistes Japonais à l’instar du portfolio You the Yellow réalisé avec le poète et critique Japonais Shuzo Takiguchi en 1964. Ce portfolio, composé de huit encres sur papier de Sam Francis sur lesquelles Shuzo Takiguchi écrivit un poème dédié au peintre, est le fruit d’une amitié débutée dix ans plus tôt à Paris, où ils se rencontrèrent par l’intermédiaire du peintre Imai. Shuzo Takiguchi, fut très vite séduit par la peinture de Francis et signa régulièrement des textes pour les expositions du peintre au Japon, notamment pour la Galerie Minami à Tokyo, participant à la renommée de l’artiste dans son pays. Comme le remarqua l’historien d’art Peter Selz, « le Japon, dont la tradition conçoit l’art avant tout comme une expérience méditative, accueillit favorablement et presque immédiatement les travaux de Sam Francis ». Selon lui, l’œuvre de Sam Francis partage avec l’esthétique Japonaise un sens aigu du dépouillement et une compréhension très fine de l’espace vide comme élément structurant de la composition artistique. L’importance du vide dans les peintures de Sam Francis est d’ailleurs un prisme régulièrement utilisé dans l’appréhension critique de son travail, non seulement au Japon mais également en Europe et aux Etats-Unis. Les taches colorées coexistent ainsi dans l’espace blanc du papier ou de la toile et flottent dans un vide conférant à chacune d’elle une existence propre. Ce sont ces interstices précisément qui permettent à la calligraphie de Shuzo Takiguchi de raisonner, apportant au travail de Sam Francis une dimension nouvelle : si Paul Valéry définissait la poésie comme une « hésitation prolongée entre le son et le sens », c’est ici de la rencontre entre le signe et la tache que nait l’expérience poétique.

Amongst the European and American artists of his generation, Sam Francis is certainly the one with the strongest attachment to Japan. The many trips he undertook starting early in the 1950’s and during the years that followed provided an importance source of inspiration for a number of his creations, sometimes imagined in collaboration with Japanese artists. Such is the case with You the Yellow, a portfolio created jointly with Japanese poet and critic Shuzo Takiguchi in 1964. This portfolio, consisting of eight gouaches on paper by Sam Francis and a calligraphed poem Shuzo Takiguchi dedicated to the painter, is the fruit of a friendship which originated a decade earlier in Paris where both artists met through the painter Imai. Shuzo Takiguchi was immediately seduced by Francis’ work and regularly wrote texts for his exhibitions in Japan, most notably for the Minami Gallery in Tokyo, therefore playing a key role in his friend’s notoriety in the country. As art historian Peter Selz noted “Japan, which traditionally conceives art first and foremost as a meditative experience, favorably welcomed almost instantly the works of Sam Francis.” According to him, both Sam Francis’ work and Japanese aesthetic share a common astute sense of destituteness and a very specific understanding of hollow spaces as structural elements of artistic composition. The importance of the void in Sam Francis’ paintings is actually a recurring approach in critically discussing his work, not only in Japan but also in Europe and the United States. The coloured stains coexist alongside the white space of the paper or the canvas and float in an emptiness that enables each stain to exist on its own. These very same interstices allow Shuzo Takiguchi’s calligraphy to fully resonate, all the while giving Sam Francis work a new dimension. Paul Valéry defined poetry as being“a prolonged hesitation between sound and sense” while here, the poetical experience clearly originates from the encounter of the symbol and the stain.



This work is identified with the interim identification number of SFEPHO.8 in consideration for the forthcoming Sam Francis: Catalogue Raisonné of Unique Works on Paper. This information is subject to change as scholarship continues by the Sam Francis
Foundation.