Museum groups works of late artist Francis

Kimberley McGee

Friday, March 29, 2002 | 10:21 a.m.

What: "Remaking the World: The Art of Sam Francis, 1950-1992."

When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday; 1-5 p.m. Sunday, through April 21.

Where: Las Vegas Art Museum, 9600 W. Sahara Ave.

Tickets: $5; $3 for seniors; $2 for students.

Information: 360-8000.

The bright blobs of color in Sam Francis' paintings reveal an emptiness in swirling reds and blues on white canvas.

The abstract painter was one of the first American artists to work in empty-center, abstract drawings in the 1950s. Francis accessed raw emotion in the way he applied paint to canvas in loose, vigorous swaths of colors in random patterns.

"The space at the center of these paintings is reserved for you," Francis pointed out in his journal, "Sam Francis: Saturated Blue, Writings from the Notebooks" (1993, Lapis Press; $64).

He added, "The role of the artist is to create the cosmos for man."

A retrospective of Francis' works is on display through April 21 at the Las Vegas Art Museum.

"Remaking the World: The Art of Sam Francis, 1950-1992" features more than 100 rarely seen paintings by the artist, which were provided to the LVAM by an anonymous private collector and the Gallery Chalk in Vermillion, Conn.

From Francis' original endeavors as a young man in Paris to those he completed during his struggle with cancer at the end of his life, many of the paintings in the exhibit are being shown together for the first time, Marianne Lorenz, executive director for the LVAM, said.

"The interesting thing people will see in this exhibit is the many aspects, the many sides of Sam Francis that they couldn't have seen anywhere else," Lorenz said.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Idemitsu Museum of Art in Tokyo and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., have featured Francis' work.

His Zen-inspired artwork continues to be revered in the art world after his death from prostate cancer on Nov. 4, 1994.

Los Angeles Times art critic William Wilson said in a 1994 article published in the days after Francis died, "Francis' art was often celebratory like splashed bubbles and confetti, diaphanous, transparent and ephemeral."

Francis was born in San Mateo, Calif., in 1923 and remained a Californian throughout his life as he traveled the world. He had studios in New York, Tokyo, Paris and London, but lived in a modest home in Santa Monica, Calif., from 1961 until his death.

In 1943 Francis dropped out of the University of California, Berkeley, (where he was studying botany, psychology and medicine) to enlist in the Army air corps at the age of 20.

After a crash landing in the Arizona desert when his plane ran out of gas on a training flight, Francis was bedridden with a spinal injury and subsequent complications.

Painting became a distraction from the pain.

Francis returned to Berkley to receive his bachelor's degree in art in '49 and master's degree in '50. That year he moved to Paris, and opened his first solo show the following year.

Francis combined elements of Eastern philosophy, Jungian psychology and a colorful palette to create a large body of work that differed from the first wave of abstract art created by Alexander Calder, among others, in the '40s.

In 1961 Francis returned to the United States to great acclaim on the heels of the abstract movement, which was taking shape by such artists as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning.

He opened the Litho Shop in Los Angeles in 1970, where much of his later works were created.

As Francis' cancer progressed in the '90s, he continued to paint from a wheelchair using his characteristically bright colors and broad strokes.

His master painter from 1981-95, Jacob Samuel, told the Los Angeles Times in 1995, "Ultimately, these paintings are about Sam's incredibly strong will to create, and that's something he had in abundance."

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