Sam Francis’s abstract compositions are amongst the most innovative explorations of color and light in twentieth-century art. A leading second-generation exponent of Abstract Expressionism, Francis used color to examine the subjective. His treatment of color and space was profoundly influenced by a 1957 visit to Japan, where he eventually established a studio. The present work’s vibrant bursts of color and gestural splatters and drips reflect Francis’s interest in Japanese haboku, or flung-ink painting, and calligraphy. He also took inspiration from the East Asian concept of the void: a mental state achieved by complete silence and stillness.

The artist probed the properties and possibilities of color throughout his career; he formulated his own pigments, translating his intuitive understanding of light and color into a tangible image, such as the present work. His paintings, as the Japanese poet and critic Yoshiaki Tono aptly noted, are of a “completely calculated Innocence.” At the same time, however, Francis battled health issues including renal tuberculosis. He made several variations of these abstracted irregular blue forms during this period of ill health and in a cheeky nod to the side effects of his illness, which included swelling, he called this series 'Blue Balls.'

Francis studied under David Park, pioneer of the Bay Area Figurative School, and later under Fernand Léger in Paris. Within a few years his work found critical acclaim and he was embraced by numerous important art historians and curators, including Michel Tapié and Georges Duthuit. Time magazine described him as “the hottest American painter in Paris these days” in 1956 and that year he was also included in the seminal 12 Americans exhibition curated by Dorothy C. Miller at MoMA. Francis travelled widely throughout his career, including his time in Japan. He returned to California in the early 1960s but maintained studios around the world. Working in Bern, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo, he was the first Post-War American painter whose reach was truly international.

The artist’s work can be found in numerous public collections worldwide, including the Tate Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Idemitsu Museum of Arts and the Centre Pompidou.