Sam Francis

Sam Fran­cis was born in San Mateo, Cal­i­for­nia, in 1923. From 1941 to 1943, he stud­ied botany, psy­chol­o­gy, and med­i­cine at Berke­ley. It was dur­ing a seri­ous injury sus­tained in World War II and his sub­se­quent long hos­pi­tal stays that he first came into con­tact with paint­ing. From 1948 to 1950, he stud­ied art his­to­ry and fine arts. After com­plet­ing his stud­ies, Sam Fran­cis lived in Paris, where he devel­oped his dis­tinc­tive style and became a lead­ing fig­ure in Tachism. He was known for his flu­id col­or com­po­si­tions and large-scale murals. After spend­ing time in Paris, Tokyo, Bern, and New York, he returned to Cal­i­for­nia in 1962 and lat­er also explored action paint­ing and print­mak­ing tech­niques. In addi­tion to his art, he was active­ly involved in the anti-Viet­nam War move­ment and found­ed a research cen­ter for envi­ron­men­tal­ly relat­ed dis­eases in 1987. Short­ly before his death in 1994, he was elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Design. 2003 – first exhi­bi­tion at Galerie Welz