Arts and Letters

I will show you a few Sam Francis paintings as I speak, just to establish the mood. As Alice in Wonderland said: "What is a book without pictures?"

I will get specific only about the last three slides.

Sam Francis died a year ago, at the age of 71, after an extraordinarily productive life. His solo exhibitions, worldwide, over the last 15 years were:

in New York City about 50
Elsewhere, USA 64
France 23
Germany 14
Japan 15
Switzerland 17
Elsewhere 24

Total in the U.S. about 114, outside the U.S. about 93, overall, say 200; apart from group shows. Fair enough.

Sam Francis has been one of the most visible artists of our time; yet his name is not exactly a household word. He had no gimmicks, no tricks, no P.R., no eccentricities. He was always a serious, tireless, dedicated painter; never a theatrical performer on a public stage. He was not, like some others, famous for becoming famous. Also, he was from, and mostly in, California, a whole continent away from New York.

Sam had been commissioned by Dr. Werner Haftmann, the director of Mies van der Rohe's new National Gallery, to paint two rectangular canvases, to be hung like curtains, from the ceiling, inside Mies's building.

Professor Jörn Merkert, the assistant director at that time, has given me the account! Haftmann had had earlier contact with Sam in California and had been impressed by his recent painting. Finding Mies's long hall too cavernous, Haftmann commissioned Sam to paint two rectangular canvasses, to be hung vertically, side-by-side, between two pillars, to "break the view," but not destroy the Mies space.

Then over months, silence. But, early in 1971, without warning, came a cable: "The painting is ready." Haftmann was astonished by the singular; why not two? Two weeks later came a second cable, "The painting is destroyed. Sam." Then, silence. Merkert reports:

Around Easter 1971, we got information from a transport agency, that a huge box had arrived in Hamburg, by sea-freight. About twelve meters long, 1.20 meters high and 1.2 wide. We had not the slightest idea what this could be. The crate was so huge that it had to be brought by ship over the canals to Berlin.

No letter; and these were pre-FAX days. Merkert's story continues:

When we opened the box, we realized that there was a huge rolled canvas in a tube in the box. So we took one closed Monday, and unrolled "the" painting. It was one single huge piece of canvas, 8 meters high and 14 meters wide. The hall is 8.20 meters high and the distance between the pillars is about 18 meters.

Barely room enough. What had happened, Merkert explains, was this:

Francis had decided, by himself, to make only one big painting… it was painted on a floor, formerly a movie studio. When the painting was finished, Sam and his assistants had put it onto a huge wooden stretcher, and tried to lift it upright, to see what they had created. But not huge enough; the stretcher broke up and the splinters tore into the painting, and destroyed it….
Then Sam painted a second version, on the floor, rolled it up and shipped it to us in Berlin, where the Nationalgalerie took up the problem with technicians and a metal stretcher, which would permit upright installation—in November 1971. And in front of it, Haftmann proudly installed the huge bird by Brancusi, which he had just acquired. [The Brancusi has been swapped for a Henry Moore.]

It was then, in this earlier incarnation, in 1971, that I had seen the single painting and had Sam over to my studio in Bundesplatz for lunch.

However, that is still not the ending: Haftmann retired, and his successor demounted this painting: it has again been torn and is rolled up, still in storage.

This is the end of that story, but not of my tribute. How did these catastrophes come about?

Why on earth was Sam painting on the floor, rather than on an easel, upright? It came historically, from Sam's printmaking, whether engravings, lithographs, or monotypes. Sam Francis, working in these techniques, poured and splashed and spread his pigments onto horizontal surfaces and built up a thickness. He commented on the relief effect this had on the behavior of the paint, different from brushing thinly on a vertical surface.

It was in monotypes, that Sam Francis had found his voice, his identity, his style, his balance between freedom and control. The technique had been exploited as early as Castiglione in the 17th century and by William Blake and Senefelder in the 19th, then by Whistler, Renoir, Degas in the 20th, a technique that leads to invention and experiment.

What is a monotype? The components—paint or other material—are poured or placed or manipulated on a glass or metal plate, against which blank paper is then pressed, adhering these materials to the paper. The artist thus combines choice with chance, on any scale, on the floor, always in a horizontal position. No stretcher to carry the weight upright. The press also is horizontal. Sam Francis has been the great exploiter and exporter of this medium. He wrote:

What has happened is that I have found a way to get into that machine (the press). When I work with these prints, I am the paper. I am the paint, I am the machine. I am not trying to "make something."

In his monotypes, Sam was a visual Mozart, acclaimed throughout this world, which he circumnavigated so often, returning always to his native California on his way to his studios in Paris, Japan, and elsewhere.

On this the first anniversary of his death (November 4), he was honored last week in Los Angeles at its Museum of Contemporary Art, and tonight, here.

"A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country."