Untitled (SF71-045) 1971

Sam Francis made this Untitled painting with what looks like diluted acrylic on paper, and it’s like he’s setting a stage, but the actors never arrive. The way the colors puddle and bleed into the paper feels really immediate, like he’s chasing a feeling rather than a picture. The paint is thin, almost like watercolor, which gives it this lovely transparency. Notice that drip of red on the left side? It’s like a little accident, but it's also totally on purpose, a little disruption in the frame. And that big white space in the center – it’s not empty, it’s charged. I see connections to Helen Frankenthaler here, especially in the way she let the paint soak into the canvas. But where Frankenthaler feels expansive, Francis feels more contained, like a little world held together by color. It feels like a sketch, a thought, a fleeting moment captured in paint.