Sam Francis was an American artist known for his exuberantly colorful, large-scale abstract paintings. His practice incorporated elements from Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Impressionism, and Eastern philosophy to create a unique style of painterly abstraction.

Born in 1923 in San Mateo, California, Sam Francis received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from University of California, Berkeley in botany and psychology before beginning to pursue a career in art. He traveled widely during his career throughout Europe and Japan, and he was closely aligned with the Art Informel movement while living abroad in Paris during the 1950s, as well as a uniquely Californian take on lyrical and post-painterly abstraction. Francis passed away in 1994 in Santa Monica at the age of 71. He was a founding trustee of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and his paintings can be found in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Kunstmuseum Basel; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, among countless others.