Joseph Cornell
Untitled (Pharmacy)
ca. 1942
On view
Sam Francis
ca. 1958
Francis turned to art as a form of therapy when recovering from a spinal injury in hospital after a plane crash during his training in the U.S. Air Force. While embracing the animated and intuitive visual idiom of Abstract Expressionism, he achieved an expressive individuality by emphasizing the sensuous, even hedonistic, qualities of colors and their interplay with light and space. In 1957 he visited Japan for the first time: reductive Eastern aesthetics of asymmetrical shapes and blank space entranced him and led him to abstract compositions such as this. The saturated palette and ever-changing forms evoke a highly-charged emotive experience, perhaps alluding to the triumph of life over illness or death.
Artist | Sam Francis |
Date | ca. 1958 |
Medium | Watercolor on paper, mounted on canvas |
Dimensions | 76.2 x 56.5 cm |
Credit line | Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012 |
Accession | 2012.57 |
Collection | Schulhof Collection |
Type | Work on paper |
Copy caption
Joseph Cornell
ca. 1942
On view
Eduardo Paolozzi
May 1958
Sam Francis
1964
Marcel Jean
1935–42