About This Artwork

Sam Francis
American, 1923-1994

Red No. 2, 1954

Oil on linen
195.6 x 99.1 cm (77 x 39 in.), unframed
Not inscribed on recto; inscribed: verso: "Francis" (on stretcher bar in black paint)
Ada Turnbull Hertle and Wirt D. Walker funds; restricted gifts of Mr. and Mrs. James W. Alsdorf and Edward E. Ayer in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson; Maurice D. Galleher Endowment, 1975.127

© 2008 Samuel L. Francis Foundation, California / ARS, New York.

Sam Francis’s early work was largely informed by the Abstract Expressionists’ lyricism and strong emphasis on color harmony. Living in Paris in the 1950s, the artist came under the influence of the Impressionist painters Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne, as well as their early 20th-century successors Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse. After viewing Monet’s Nympheas at L’Orangerie in 1953, Francis transformed his palette from pale grays and muted hues to an explosive mixture of primary colors. With its juxtaposition of cadmium red and deep blue, a combination that makes the surface seem to pulsate, Red No. 2 exemplifies the vibrancy of Francis’s paintings from this era.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, “Expressionism, 1900–1955,” February 1–March 11, 1956; traveled to Boston, Institute of Contemporary Art, April–May 13, 1956, San Francisco Museum of Art, June 6–July 22, 1956, Cincinnati Art Museum and Contemporary Arts Center, September 12–October 4, 1956, Baltimore Museum of Art, October 2–November 4, 1956, and Buffalo, Albright Art Gallery, November 16–December 30, 1956, n.pag.

Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, “Action Painting,” March 5–April 13, 1958, cat. by Thomas B. Hess and Harold Rosenberg, n.pag. (ill.).

Publication History

“Modern Paintings and Sculptures from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Ross” (New York: Parke–Bernet Galleries, 1964), cat. 54 (color ill.).

“Annual Report 1974–75” (Art Institute of Chicago, 1975), pp. 33, 77 (ill.).

Ownership History

Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, by 1956. Sold to Mr. and Mrs. Walter Ross, New York, by 1964. Sold, B. C. Holland Gallery, Chicago, to the Art Institute, 1975.