Moby Dick
Sam Francis
American, 1923–1994
Paris 1957-58
A large oil on canvas in which Sam Francis uses sweeping gestures, saturated blues and cascading drips to evoke movement, light, and emotional intensity.
On a broad white field a pulsating, cloudlike mass of cobalt, violet, and orange appears to float and bleed outward, its paint running in delicate drips and lively splatters that suggest both explosion and bloom.
Painted in Paris in 1957–58, it exemplifies Francis’s role in steering postwar abstraction toward luminosity and lyrical color, bridging American action painting with a European concern for space and light.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
7' 9" x 12' 2 3/4" (236.2 x 372.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Celeste and Armand P. Bartos
Accession
497.1984
Palette
Exhibitions
