The exhibition celebrates internationally acclaimed California abstract painter Sam Francis (1923–1994). A highly coherent survey approach to his career has been organized by curators Peter Selz and Debra Burchett-Lere around key periods of the artist’s ouevre, starting from early works made in the Bay Area in the 1940s, and leading through works made in the artist’s California studios in Palo Alto, Point Reyes, Santa Monica, and Venice, as well as those made when Francis was living in New York, Switzerland, and Japan.
On Sept 21, the museum will screen a film, The Painter Sam Francis, by Jeffrey Perkins. The film retraces Francis’s life and career and features an interview that Perkins conducted with his friend and mentor Sam Francis in 1973 as well as other interviews with friends, family, and fellow artists.
Sam Francis: Five Decades of Abstract Expressionism from California Collections | Pasadena Museum of California Art | thru Jan 5, 2014