Sunny side up

ArtForum, March, 1999 by Peter Plagens

But I'm still worried about how the late stuff will look. I hope it'll be another case of Guston (style change? no problem) or de Kooning (who may not have ended at his best, but at least he put up a hell of a fight). Agee's inclusiveness precludes the kind of radical period-editing that Frankenthaler got at the Guggenheim last year. So, in effect, the paint's been flung into the air and who knows how it will land. Inevitably, we'll have to ask the big question (we started with questions, so we'll go ahead and end with one): Will the exhibition reveal a deep, constant aesthetic - and philosophical risk - behind Francis's undeniable prettiness ? If not, then the paintings had better be damn pretty - especially if Francis's reputation is to hold up outside LA.

Still, one can't help feeling somewhat shrewish questioning Francis's ultimate claim to be a major Abstract Expressionist when so few painters are even contenders. Although Francis has never made it into the anthologies as one of the Big Boys, he's hardly a neglected figure. His career is stuffed with big-time patrons, big-time commissions, and big-time shows. While his total artistic persona - embellished as it was with travel, wives and lovers, several children, and great material wealth - may not rival Picasso's, it doesn't ring as hollow as, say, Julian Schnabel's.

In 1989, Francis was diagnosed with cancer, but the painter - who was never anything less than brave - painted fight up until the end, even when confined to a wheelchair. (He was conscious enough to work only if he kept his dosage of painkillers too low to kill his pain.) His nurse said, "His Buddhist beliefs were a comfort to him." His studio assistant said, "Buddhism was no comfort to him as far as I could see." Sam Francis died of prostate cancer on November 4, 1994, at the age of seventy-one.