Towards Disappearance II 1958

Sam Francis made "Towards Disappearance II" with paint on canvas, and it’s this big, beautiful explosion of color you can see right here at MoMA. The way he's laid down these gorgeous pools of color, it feels like he's inviting us to watch paint do its thing, to see the process itself. I'm really drawn to how Francis lets the materiality of the paint sing. It’s not just about color, it’s about the thickness, the drips, the way one hue bleeds into another. Look at that big splash of orange at the top right. See how it sort of crackles and pops with energy? And then your eye drifts down into these deep pools of blues and purples, they seem to be still and calm. It's like the paint itself is breathing, expanding, and contracting. For me, this piece speaks to the legacy of color field painting, and maybe even hints at what Helen Frankenthaler was doing. It’s like a big, ongoing conversation about how to make a painting that's more about feeling than seeing, more about the experience than the image.