Self-Portrait 1974

Sam Francis made this self-portrait with lithographic ink on paper. I can just imagine Sam hovering over the lithographic stone, working this image in reverse. It's a pretty pared back image, rendered in shades of browny-grey. The texture is rough and grainy, and the face seems to emerge from the surface almost tentatively. You know, Francis was a bit of a wild one, a risk-taker. He was pals with Joan Mitchell and they both had this abstract expressionist thing going on. There's something very direct about the marks, which feel very intimate. I'm kind of wondering, was he feeling a bit vulnerable when he made this? Painters are always looking at each other's work. It's like a big conversation that goes back centuries. We keep trying to figure out how to capture something about being human. It's all one big experiment, right?