- Artist
- Sam Francis 1923–1994
- Medium
- Oil paint and acrylic paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 2755 × 4875 × 50mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1964
- Reference
- T00634
Catalogue entry
T00634 Around the Blues 1957/1962
Inscribed 'Around the Blues 1957' on back of canvas
Oil and Magna colour on canvas, 108 x 192 (274 x 487.5)
Purchased from the artist (The Trustees of the Tate Gallery Discretionary Fund) 1964
Exh: Sam Francis, Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, November-December 1957 (no catalogue) as 'Round the Blues'; Primera Bienal Interamericana de Pintura y Grabado, Museo Nacional de Artes Plasticas, Mexico City, June-August 1958 (US section, works not listed); on loan to Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass., October 1958-December 1959; Dunn International, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick, September-October 1963 (27, repr.); Tate Gallery, November-December 1963 (27, repr.)
Lit: Curtis H. Shell and John McAndrew, Catalogue of European and American Sculpture, Paintings and Drawings at Wellesley College (Wellesley 1958), p. 61 as 'Around the Blues'
Repr: Arts, XXXVIII, January 1964, p. 51; Norbert Lynton, The Modern World (London 1965), p.150 in colour; Terry Measham, The Moderns 1945-1975 (London 1976), pl.51 in colour
This picture was painted mainly in 1957 and was first exhibited at the Martha Jackson Gallery in November-December that year together with a number of watercolours. The artist has stated (letter of 8 March 1964): 'It was reworked in 1962. Certain colors were strengthened, mostly blues. Also, the whites were cleaned up and retouched where needed. The white is actually the ground. The ground is made of liquitex gesso white. The painted parts are painted with Winsor-Newton oil color, thinned with turpentine, in to which has been added a bit of varnish. Also, some colors are painted with Magna color, a plastic paint made by Shiva, often mixed with oil paint.'
Comparison with a photograph of the original state taken when the picture was on loan to Wellesley College in 1958-9 confirms that no very radical changes were made during the reworking. The main differences (colour apart) seem to be that the artist tended to soften the rather rigid edges of the shapes and to give the whole composition a looser and more fluid character.
When shown at Fredericton in 1963 in the Dunn International it was awarded one of the six equal prizes of $5,000.
Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.225, reproduced p.225
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