The Blue Between the Red and Green | 1960

Captivated by Monet’s Water Lilies at the Musée de l’Orangerie in 1953, Sam Francis was bewitched by these giant canvases with tighter framing, overflowing with misty shapes. In The Blue between the Red and Green, the excessive disproportion of its large majestic paint layers completely invade the work from edge to edge and submerge the viewer in a river of colors.

Separating streams of rubies and emeralds with dazzlingly pure cobalt, Francis cultivates his mastery of the chromatic circle to generate a fiery light within his composition. He manages to keep a careful balance between the colors to ensure the harmony of the work.

Undeniably, this tripartite composition of The Blue Between the Red and Green, is a eulogy to color. The explosion of scarlet red, azure blue and electric green is exalted and bubbles on the surface of the work. Generous and daring in his application of acrylic, Francis nevertheless reinforces the luminosity of his work by letting the white of the paper shine through. Like sparkling reflections on water, it adds a new dimension of unexpected depth to the work.

Moved by lively and rapid brushstrokes, Francis’ layers of paint suggest a fluid and frenetic gesture. He embellishes this tumultuous sea with fine vermilion splashes that spring up throughout the composition, thus letting spontaneity and chance complete his work. It is this famous gestural expressiveness, executed in two stages, that sets Sam Francis apart from his contemporaries.

It was also in the 1960s that the artist started experimenting with the full range of ultramarine blue, a color so pure and so revered, to end up with his famous “Blue Balls” series. The unique cobalt pigment represented on the paper is exploited in several shades, without however losing its purity. Indeed, Francis does not add other colors, but simply dilutes the paint with water in order to manipulate it thanks to the air once placed on the paper.

Sam Francis possesses a disconcerting ability to combine solid colors and specks of paint to create striking multidimensional compositions. Throughout his international career, Francis has remained faithful to his singular abstraction which has allowed him to establish himself as one of the most referenced abstract artists of the 20th century.