Lot 56
  • 56

Sam Francis

Estimate
800,000 - 1,200,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Sam Francis
  • Untitled
  • numbered SFP 79-51 four times on the overlap and nine times on the stretcher
  • acrylic on canvas
  • 120 1/4 x 96 in. 305.4 x 243.8 cm.
  • Executed in 1979.

Provenance

Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles (acquired from the artist, SFP79-51)
Acquired by the present owner from the above in March 1988

Exhibited

Paris, Galerie Jean Fournier, Sam Francis, October – November 1979

Literature

Deborah Burchett-Lere, ed., Sam Francis: Catalogue Raisonné of the Canvas and Panel Paintings 1923-1994, Berkeley, 2011, cat. no. 721, illustrated in color on DVD

Condition

This work is in excellent condition overall. There are a few curvilinear abrasions in the lower half, located in the blue pigment 28-29" from the bottom and 26 ½ - 40 1/2" from the left edge as well as an 8" area near the right edge, 58" up from the bottom. In the maroon paint in the lower left quadrant, there is a small and unobtrusive constellation of minute accretions that exhibit a whitish cast, located 10-32" up from the bottom and 14 ½ - 30 ½ in. in from the left. Close inspection shows scattered brownish wear and soiling along the bottom overturn edge and at the lower left and right corner tips. Under ultraviolet light there are no apparent restorations. The canvas is not framed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

Beginning in 1970, a surge of forceful creative energy returned to Sam Francis’s practice, imbuing the paintings that he created in that decade with a resonance and almost explosive power reminiscent of his transformative canvases of the 1950s. Working with unparalleled concentration and consistency, Francis generated during these years a corpus of paintings that comprise some of the masterpieces of his oeuvre. With its engulfing scale, chromatic intensity and striking compositional beauty, Untitled, 1979, is situated at the very pinnacle of this crucial period of the artist’s prodigious career. Like Jackson Pollock, Francis placed the monumental canvases for works such as Untitled on the floor, often standing at the very center and working his way, freely and openly, out to all four sides. He took to tracing broad bands of color across his surfaces through the use of a wet roller, creating a matrix of structural beams from which he built out, adding pools, splatters and drips of paint by hand to form a dense and active surface. Signs of an underlying grid, painted in a deep, piercing blue hue, are evident in Untitled, which is arresting in its textural variety and the vibrancy of its palette. Here, Francis united the stable architectural network to its apparent opposite, the ceaseless flow of loose, painterly color, a union that had characterized his art from the very beginning. Nearly all of Francis’s paintings from this time feature a repeated crossing and re-crossing of tracks of pigment, which are then interrupted by stabilizing elements in the form of small square windows of open space. The composition of Untitled is likewise punctuated by these beautifully still moments of pause, areas reserved for the viewer amid the frenetic activity of color and banding around them. There is immense diversity and a sense of constant surprise and rediscovery in the paintings of the 1970s, which hit their apex in 1978 and 1979. An absolutely stunning exemplar of these outstanding years, Untitled epitomizes the eloquent words of Donald Kuspit, who described Francis’s art as possessing a “sense of finished form while maintaining a sense of formlessness: he heroically wrests classical beauty out of romantic chaos.” (Donald Kuspit, “Sam Francis’s Changing Face,” in Exh. Cat., Madrid, Fundación Caja de Madrid, Sam Francis: Elements and Archetypes,  1997, p. 206)