Sam Francis

SAM FRANCIS (San Mateo, California, 1923 – Santa Monica, California, 1994).
“Bright Jade Ghost, Variant II,” 1963.
Color lithograph on BFK Rives paper.
Variant II of a total edition of 125 copies, distributed across five color variants of 25 copies each.
Signed and inscribed in pencil.
Bibliography: Lembark/Page, ref. L 29.
Measurements: 60 x 88 cm.

Created in 1963, a particularly significant year in Sam Francis’s lithographic exploration, “Bright Jade Ghost” belongs to a series of five color variants, each limited to just 25 copies. The repetition of the same structure through different color combinations reveals the extent to which Francis understood color not as an accessory element, but as the true transformative agent of the image.

The composition vividly displays the language that defined his mature period: large organic forms, patches, splatters, and expansive areas of negative space that articulate an open and expansive space. Yellows, greens, reds, and blues overlap and interweave, creating varying degrees of transparency and density. The gestural dynamism thus coexists with a meticulous chromatic construction, bringing much of the immediacy and luminosity characteristic of his paintings into the lithograph.

Sam Francis was one of the key figures of postwar American abstraction. Based in Paris since 1950, he held his first solo exhibition there in 1952 and pursued a distinctly international career, subsequently maintaining studios in Paris, Bern, New York, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. He participated in Documenta II in Kassel and the São Paulo Biennial in 1959, and in 1963 he completed a six-month residency at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, which proved decisive for the development of his graphic work. His work is represented in institutions such as MoMA in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and SFMOMA, among other major international collections.