1923-1994
Born in San Mateo, California, Francis began painting while immobilised in hospital after a wartime flying accident, working on his back looking upward. That origin marks everything: the emphasis on light, the sense of colour suspended rather than applied.
He spent formative years in Paris in the fifties, then Tokyo, where the Japanese treatment of empty space entered his work permanently. The mature paintings push colour to the edges and leave the centre open. He died in Santa Monica in 1994.
