Sam Francis, « In Lovely Blueness »
Echoing Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, on September 12, 2023, the Musée de l’Orangerie presented Sam Francis’ very large-format In Lovely Blueness, on a three-year loan from the Musée National d’Art Moderne / Centre de Création Industrielle, to which it had been donated in 1977 by the Scaler Foundation with contributions from Éric and Sylvie Boissonnas.
Sam Francis arrived in Paris in 1950 and stayed for a decade, during which time his work gained recognition. The format of this painting was inspired by Monet’s Water Lilies, which he discovered when the museum reopened in 1953. He titled the work In Lovely Blueness, recalling a poem by Hölderlin (In Lieblicher Bläue, 1823). Blue of the sky, as the poet wrote, blue of the ocean too, according to Sam Francis, this color reveals the lyricism of his view of the world.