Sam Francis

The U.S. American painter Sam Francis is one of the most important representatives of Abstract Expressionism following a second generation of artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko or Willem de Kooning. His frequent travels between New York, California, Europe - especially Paris -, Mexico, and Japan made their mark on his oeuvre, freeing him at the same time to be perceived as a strictly American artist. Influenced by European Art Informel and Zen Buddhism, Francis developed an oevure that sought to unite the idea of emptiness with the presence of a painterly presence. In this way Francis combines influences from caligraphy, colour field painting and action painting in his works, where pure colours meet unpainted surfaces and increase each other's effect.