Untitled 1974

Sam Francis made this big untitled painting with watercolor on paper. Imagine the movement of his hand, and how he approached the pristine white surface. Did he feel the freedom, that total release when you just let the color explode across the surface? It’s like he started with these soft, watery washes, letting the colors bleed and mingle, then went back in with darker, concentrated pigment to give some weight and density. I totally get what he’s doing here—spreading and spotting color. It's about pushing the paint around and getting the surface excited! There's that delicious tension between control and chance. It’s almost like he was thinking about a landscape but letting the colors do their own thing, creating their own space. Francis was definitely having a conversation with painters like Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, and all those color field painters. They’re all figuring out how to make color sing and dance on the canvas. In this moment, it's the artist's own vision and voice. It is not fixed or final.