After serving during World War II and spending much of the rest of his young adult life hospitalized with spinal tuberculosis, Francis chose to spend the next decade as an expat, taking inspiration from all he encountered in his far flung travels. Tempering the brashness of American Abstraction, Francis’ work pulls from a heady international stew of Jungian Psychology, Zen Buddhism, the physical European landscape, Mexican textile, and French Modernism. In this way, too, Francis seems more a man of the 21st than the 20th century, and the evidence is on the canvas. Taken in today, thirty years after the artist’s death, Francis’ sense of light and color seem quite at home, easily besting the attention-seizing hues of street art, the everglow of advertisement, and the phosphorescence of our all-consuming #aesthetic digital environment. The defiant joy of his prescient color theory and spirit sets Francis apart from his contemporaries and continues to make his practice a favorite with the staff and patrons of Hamilton-Selway Fine Art Gallery.

Sam Francis
Untitled (SF-345), 1991
Lithograph in colors, on wove paper
46 5/8 x 30 inches
Edition of 50
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