LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Sam Francis Foundation will release the first installment of the Sam Francis: Online Catalogue Raisonné ProjectThe Compilation of Unique Works on Paper and Expanded Version of Canvas and Panel Paintings of the internationally recognized artist on April 18, 2018. This first installment contains 201 entries documenting the currently known unique works on paper and canvas and panel paintings attributed to Sam Francis from 1945 through 1949. The online catalogue raisonné project (SFCR) will ultimately document the entire oeuvre of this extremely prolific artist and will be available to a global audience.
One of the twentieth centurys leading interpreters of light and color, American artist Sam Francis (19231994) was one of the first post-World War II painters to develop an international reputation. A truly international artist, he maintained studios in Bern, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo, and his work references New York Abstract Expressionism, Color Field Painting, Chinese and Japanese art, French Impressionism, and his own Bay Area roots. Francis created thousands of paintings as well as works on paper, prints, and monotypes, which are housed in major museum collections and institutions around the world.
The online catalogue raisonné expands upon the decades of research presented in Sam Francis: Catalogue Raisonné of Canvas and Panel Paintings, 19461994 published by the University of California Press in 2011. SFCR is an interactive digital platform that presents for the first time unique works on paper and new information compiled by Editor Debra Burchett-Lere, Project Manager Beth Ann Whittaker, Contributors Leila Elliott and Stephanie Velazquez, and a team of photography editors, who have conducted extensive research with the Sam Francis Foundations in-house archives as well as the Getty Research Institutes holdings.
Embracing the artists creative and innovative spirit, the living catalogue raisonné will be amended regularly, both with new entries and with updates to existing pages, which will be time-stamped as they are modified. We are thrilled to launch this first volume of Sam Franciss digital catalogue raisonné, SFCR, which highlights the latest and most exhaustive research on the artist available to anyone, anywhere, says Debra Burchett-Lere, Director of the Sam Francis Foundation. It furthers the Foundations mission as it enables the international audience, to whom Francis was so significant, to access his vast oeuvre and learn new information about him as it is being discovered.
In recognition of Sam Franciss broad and prolific output, the SFCR will be made available in chronological installments, giving audiences the opportunity to immerse themselves in each stage of his artistic development. Upon this initial release, access to the data will be free to the public for a trial period via
https://cr.samfrancisfoundation.org. The trial period will introduce users to Franciss work from 1945 through 1949 through the SFCRs multilevel, archival, and relational elements.
Developed with panOpticon, a catalogue raisonné software program specifically designed to be informational and conducive to art research, the SFCR will function much like a traditional printed catalogue raisonné. Future volumes will include thumbnail data on each artwork, which will be available to the public, and fully expanded entries, which will be available to subscribers.
Sam Francis said about his work, These paintings approach you where you are, and with this new development, the artists words take on new meaning, as his oeuvre now addresses viewers wherever theyand their digital devicesare or want to be.