Sam Francis

Sam Francis

Sam Francis was a 20th-century American painter known for his vibrant use of color and contributions to Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel. Born in California in 1923, he began painting while hospitalized after an accident during flight training in World War II. In 1957, during his global travels, Francis visited Japan for the first time. His later works reflect the influence of Japanese art, evident in his use of negative space and delicate "bleeding" effects in color application. He maintained studios in New York, Paris, and Tokyo, frequently visiting Japan and engaging with cultural figures such as Sofu Teshigahara, Kenzaburō Ōe, Nobuo Ōoka, and Fujio Koyama. Sazō Idemitsu, the founder of Idemitsu Kosan and a renowned collector of Asian antiquities, was also an avid collector of Francis’s works. Today, many of his paintings are housed in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts in Tokyo.