Sunny side up

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.

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