Year: 1972
Medium: screenprint in colors
Dimensions: 107.4 x 138.2 cm (42 1/4 x 54 3/8 in.)
Edition: No. 41 of 50
Acquired from Sotheby’s, 2022
Francis has an international reputation as an important artist in the Abstract Expressionism movement and having close ties with Japan. This work is a rhythmic composition with effective use of three primary colors, dripping reminiscent of Pollock, and other elements such as blank space that is said to be influenced by Zen and Japanese painting. While artists of Abstract Expressionism in general prefer large, overall compositions often referred to as all-over or American scale, Francis’s paintings are clearly different by putting much more emphasis on the blank space. It is rather rare in the history of Western painting to have such a meaningful use of white background as in this work. Cézanne had several intentionally unpainted areas, but they are different from the blank spaces of Francis. Cézanne was expressing something in the blank space, while Francis carefully shows the meaning of the blank space being blank. The relation of the subject and background as the major premise of painting should be thrown away in this work. The attention should turn to the relationship between the colored areas and the non-colored, white, blank space.
