Sam Francis painting in his studio in Point Reyes Station, California, 1991. Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California, on 25 June 1923. His path to art was indirect, as he initially studied botany, medicine, and philosophy at the Berkeley University in California, between 1941 and 1942. In 1943, he joined the American Air Force during the Second World War. A serious spinal cord injury sustained during a training flight left him hospitalized for several years, and it was during this long period of recovery that he began painting, an activity that would become central to his life and artistic identity.
A turning point came in 1945 when art professor David Park visited Francis through mutual friends. Park saw his talent, offered guidance, and introduced him to artists like Joan Miró, Paul Klee, and Pablo Picasso. These influences shaped Francis’s early style and encouraged him to explore abstraction.
Francis became known for his bold use of colour and lively compositions. His paintings often show bright white spaces set against splashes, drips, and bursts of strong colour. Although linked to Abstract Expressionism, his style was unique, shaped by his time in Japan and France, where he learned from both Eastern and European art. Throughout his fifty-year career, Francis kept experimenting and finding new ways to express abstraction.
During his career, Francis showed his work around the world and earned wide recognition. His art is part of major museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Tate Gallery in London.
Some of his most famous series include the Blue Balls paintings from the early 1960s, which show organic shapes on white backgrounds. In the mid-1960s, his Edge paintings focused colour along the edges of the canvas, leaving the centre mostly empty. The white space is not an unpainted background, but an active and integral part of the painting. As Sam Francis said, “I feel that white is like the space between things”. Later, he made colourful grid-based works that show his ongoing interest in rhythm, space, and colour. Francis was also passionate about printmaking. He started his own print workshop, the Litho Shop, in Santa Monica. This gave him the chance to try new graphic techniques and expand his art beyond painting.
Sam Francis passed away in 1994 at age 71. He is remembered as one of the most influential abstract painters of the postwar era.
Selected artworks
Sam Francis
Untitled (SF92-117), Acrylic on paper
1992 , 81 × 57 cm
Sam Francis
Untitled (SF89-273), Acrylic on paper
1989 , 56.83 x 43.5 cm
Sam Francis
Untitled(SF90-512), Acrylic on paper
1990 , 99 x 71 cm
Sam Francis
Untitled (SF85-217), Acrylic on prepared paper
1985 , 62 x 43.5 cm
Sam Francis
Untitled (SF74-760), Acrylic on paper
1974 , 49 x 35.5 cm
Sam Francis
The Secret Room (SF46-2), Egg tempera on masonite panel
1946 , 55.8 x 71.1 cm
Sam Francis
Untitled (SF60-1204), Watercolor on paper
1960 , 56.5 x 76.2 cm
Sam Francis
Untitled (SF59-369), Mixed media on paper
1959 , 43.18 x 31.12 cm
Sam Francis
Untitled (SFP84-62), Acrylic on canvas
1984 , 40.97 x 26.67 cm
Nico met Sam Francis through Walasse Ting, a close friend of the artist. Nico first saw Francis’s 1960s works in Ting’s studio and was immediately attracted to his unique sense of space and colour. He bought five pieces from Ting and later arranged to meet Francis in person.
Their first meeting was in 1989 at Francis’s place in Venice, California. After that, Nico visited him often at his different studios and homes in Santa Monica, Palo Alto, and Point Reyes. They spent time talking, sharing meals—often Japanese food—and discussing art.
Nico also bought and sold Francis’s work. In 1990, their friendship led to the first exhibition at Gallery Delaive in Amsterdam.
In 1974, Sam Francis began experimenting with monotypes, which he called “instant painting.” While artists like Rembrandt and Degas had used this technique before, Francis brought new energy and immediacy to it. In the late 1970s and 1980s, he developed what he called “prototypes”—stacked wood veneer plates covered with painted marks. He kept these works in his studio, and they were mostly unseen during his lifetime.
Francis knew that Nico deeply appreciated his later works. Over time, their relationship grew into a special friendship. Nico later became the official European representative of the Sam Francis Foundation and built one of the largest collections of Francis’s art in the world.
As a tribute to their unique friendship, Nico named his son, born in 2002, after Sam Francis.
Nico Delaive with Sam Francis during a visit to the artist in California, 1989. Pictures
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