Sam Francis was an American artist known for his exuberant large-scale abstract paintings. His practice incorporated elements from Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Impressionism, and Eastern philosophy to create a unique style of painterly abstraction. Influenced by Jackson Pollock and Clyfford Still, his work is more closely associated to the paintings of Helen Frankenthaler. Works such as Around the Blues (1957,1963) show the artist’s interest in the formal arrangement of the picture plane as well as his love of flying in airplanes. “Painting is about the beauty of space and the power of containment,” he once reflected. Born on June 25, 1923 in San Mateo, CA, he briefly served in the US Air Force during World...