Samuel Lewis Francis was born in 1923, in San Mateo, California. He began painting in 1944 during a convalescence following an accident the artist had while enrolled in The U.S. Army Air Corps. Francis decided to progress in this new passion and soon abandoned his intended medical studies to follow his artistic ambitions, earning a BA in 1949 and an MA in 1950 at the University of California, Berkeley.
Francis moved to Paris in 1950, where he became familiar with the work of Matisse, Bonnard and Monet. He travelled consistently throughout the 1950s, including visits to Mexico and Japan. Francis returned to California in 1962 and resumed painting with combinations of bright tonalities. Over the next decades, Francis's style in painting and print production constantly changed and evolved, exploring different combinations of the relationship between shape and colour. Throughout his artistic career, Francis realised several public commissions, held many international exhibitions, and had studios in cities such as Bern, Paris, Los Angeles, and Tokyo.
During the final decades of career, Francis held and supported several projects in publishing and nonprofit organisations. After opening his own lithography studio, in 1975 Francis funded an alternative energy company. In 1980 he contributed to the organisation of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Los Angeles. Ten years later, he founded the Sam Francis Art Museum in 1990 to perpetuate his artistic legacy and support charitable donations.
Francis’ work can be found in the following selected international collections: the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); The Broad, Los Angeles; Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena; Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo; Kunstmuseum Basel; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Tate Collection, London.
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