NARRATOR:
The mural-size paintings of the American artist Sam Francis are stained with brilliant, transparent color. Here, organic clusters of incandescent, yellow, orange, and blue, burst from a sea of white. Drips and splashes of paint suggest movement, as forms appear to drift across the picture surface. White spaces open up like windows to infinity, evoking a sense of diffuse, weightless atmosphere.
Basel Mural I is one of three large-scale paintings created for the grand stairwell of a contemporary art museum in Basel, Switzerland, where they were exhibited from 1958–1964. But the museum in Basel never purchased the paintings, and the panels were subsequently dispersed. In 1967, Francis donated Basel Mural I to the Pasadena Art Museum, now known as the Norton Simon Museum. Basel Mural II was purchased by the Stedlijk Museum in Amsterdam, and in 2009, fragments 1 and 2 of Basel Mural III was donated to the Norton Simon Museum by the Sam Francis Foundation.
A native of California, Francis began work on the triptych in 1956 while living in Paris. He was greatly inspired by Claude Monet’s epic cycle of water lilies, which the Impressionist master had painted toward the end of his life. The Basel murals took two years to complete and consumed all of Francis’ energies:
SAM FRANCIS [ACTOR]:
“I have been immersed in the work for a month now and can think of nothing else. I have forgotten sleep and the brush is up and will not come down until they are finished. It is like filling great sails dipped in color. This is the work I always wanted to do.”
Basel Mural I
1956-58
Sam Francis (American, 1923-1994)
On View
Born in northern California and a member of the Army Air Corps in World War II, Sam Francis first turned to art when convalescing from a serious spinal injury sustained in training. Bedridden for close to three years, Francis turned to watercolors as therapy before fully committing to painting around 1946, and the qualities of the aqueous medium would inform his painting—even in oil—for the entirety of his career. In 1950 he moved to Paris, his “mother city,” as he referred to it, and established himself as a leading painter of light and color.
While in Paris, Francis worked on a series of large murals, a tradition he viewed as different from painting and one that allowed for greater expanses of space and movement. A result of his new success in this large-scale format was a commission in late 1956 by Arnold Rüdlinger, director of the Basel Kunsthalle and an early champion of Francis’s art. The artist’s task was to paint three murals to be installed in the museum, where they were hung from 1958 to 1964. One of these three impressive canvases, Basel Mural I, was donated by the artist to the Pasadena Art Museum (now the Norton Simon Museum) in 1967. (see also Basel Mural III Fragment 1 and Fragment 2).
Details
- Artist Name: Sam Francis (American, 1923-1994)
- Title: Basel Mural I
- Date: 1956-58
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 151 3/4 x 237 3/8 in. (385.5 x 602.9 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of the Artist
- Accession Number: P.1967.24
- Copyright: © Sam Francis Foundation, California / Artist Rights Society (ARS), NY
Object Information
Sam Francis, Santa Monica, gift 1967 to;
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1967-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 1975.
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1967-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 1975.
Documenta III
- Kassel, Germany, 1964-01-01 to 1964-12-31
New American Painting
- Kunsthalle Basel, 1958-01-01 to 1964-12-31
Sam Francis Paintings 1947-1972
- Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1972-09-11 to 1972-10-15
- Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1972-11-01 to 1972-11-30
- Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1973-02-07 to 1973-03-25
- Oakland Museum, 1973-06-11 to 1973-08-05
- Whitney Museum of American Art, 1972-12-10 to 1973-01-14
Sam Francis, 'Les Annees Francaise'
- Paris, Galerie Nationale du Jeru de Paume, 1995-12-12 to 1996-02-23
Sam Francis: Paintings 1947-1990
Images of an Era
- Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1996-07-10 to 1997-06-29
Timepieces
- Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.), 1998-04-13 to 1999-02-21
American Art of the 1950s and 1960s from the Collection of the Norton Simon Museum
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988-08-11 to 1994-04-03
Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31
- Los Angeles Times, Part V p. A
- Documenta III, Kassel '64, 1964, pp. 226-226
- Buck, Robert T., Sam Francis Paintings 1947-1972, 1972, no. 38 pp. 83
- Selz, Peter, Sam Francis, 1982, pl. 20 pp. 53-60
- De Chassey, Eric, Beaux Arts Magazine, 1995, pp. 69-71
- Sam Francis, les années parisiennes 1950-1961, 1995, pp. 8, 20, 21, 83
- The Contemporary, 1996, p. 8
- Agee, William C., Sam Francis: Paintings 1947-1990, 1999, fig. 35, pl. 29 pp. 36, 82
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Additional Artwork by Artist
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