The Eclectic World of Sam Francis

Sam Francis died two years ago, ending a painting career that spanned half a century and brought him international renown, but he still has a vital presence.

In the first commercial exhibition of artworks drawn from the artist’s estate, the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills is presenting large abstractions from 1965-83 that might have been designed for the gallery’s soaring, light-filled space.

Francis is also a player in this week’s contemporary art auctions in New York. Eight works by other artists from his collection--including Alfred Jensen, Edward and Nancy Kienholz, John McCracken and Robert Therrien--will go on the block Wednesday afternoon at Sotheby’s. The estate does not sell Francis’ own work at auction, but 20 of his pieces from other sources--valued at up to $300,000--will be offered in a series of sales today through Thursday at Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes in Venice, an industrial building Francis used as a studio is being transformed from a leaky hulk to a streamlined headquarters for his estate. In an extensive renovation, the 16,000-square-foot building has been equipped with a gallery, storage facilities, a print shop, a shipping room, an archive, administrative offices and an apartment for visiting artists and curators. Finishing touches and exterior improvements are pending, but the project is expected to be complete in January.

As to the estate itself, worth millions of dollars, and the future of the operation housed in Venice, it’s complicated. Francis, a man of voracious appetites who called himself “a spender,” had five wives, four children, a global vision of art and an eclectic range of interests. As might be expected, he left a complicated puzzle for his heirs to solve.

When he died of cancer in Santa Monica on Nov. 4, 1994, the 71-year-old artist left thousands of his own works, some 400 by other artists, an art book publishing company called Lapis Press and a printmaking facility known as the Litho Shop. His real estate holdings included a residential compound and studio in Santa Monica, a house in Paris, interest in a building in Maui, property on Lake Washington in Washington state, a home and studio in Pt. Reyes, north of San Francisco, and a 450-acre ranch in the nearby town of Marshall. He also owned a herd of cattle, eight Arabian horses and lots of automobiles.

“Sam was very prolific, and he did things in a big way,” said attorney Frederick M. Nicholas, who was appointed special advisor to the estate last July. A longtime friend of Francis and a trustee of the Museum of Contemporary Art who is known as the Los Angeles art community’s diplomate extraordinaire, Nicholas is not only overseeing appraisals of the estate’s assets and payment of taxes, but helping family members decide how to handle a foundation Francis established but didn’t define.

Francis left his estate to his fifth wife, Margaret Smith Francis, and four children. He also stipulated that the bulk of his art would go to a foundation. That’s clear enough, but his concept of the foundation is vague. Although he called the foundation the Sam Francis Museum, he didn’t set it up as a conventional museum or even specify its activities.

Establishing an actual museum seems unlikely because of long-term costs, Nicholas said. “The foundation may provide funds for other museums or other artists--or other things Sam was interested in. How it works will depend on the people who become trustees, and that will be determined by the family.”

But if fundamental issues await resolution, much has been done to process the estate through legal channels and keep the Francis fires burning. The only claim against the estate was filed by Muriel Goodwin, who was married to Francis in the 1950s, and requested a widow’s allowance, on the basis that their divorce in Alabama was invalid because he was not a resident of the state. She lost the case and an appeal, and is now waiting to see if the Alabama Supreme Court will hear the case, Nicholas said.

*

Most of Francis’ real estate has been appraised and put on the market, and the cattle have been sold, Nicholas said. Appraising the art is a much more complicated process because it involves researching and documenting thousands of pieces, but the job is about half done. He declined to hazard a guess about the number of works or their value.

The estate is also involved in exhibitions of Francis’ work. Several museum shows have taken place in Europe since the artist’s death. For the Gagosian exhibition, the estate got court approval to sell a few paintings--priced at up to $900,000 apiece--to pay taxes. Robert Shapazian, who works for Gagosian and formerly directed Francis’ Lapis Press, curated the show and French critic Pierre Schneider wrote the catalog essay.

Other exhibitions are being organized by a network of longtime Francis dealers, Debra Burchett-Lere, director-curator of the estate, said. Andre Emmerich in New York will have a show in February, followed by Los Angeles dealer Manny Silverman in the spring and Chicago’s Richard Gray next fall. Commercial gallery exhibitions also are in the works at Proarta in Zurich and Fournier in Paris. A traveling Francis retrospective, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, is slated to open in Los Angeles in fall 1998.

“What we’re trying to do here is to keep Sam alive in a way that he would be happy with, while meeting the art world’s requirements and needs,” Burchett-Lere said. “We want to give him the position in art history that he deserves.”

Exhibitions are the most public aspect of that effort. Maintaining a measure of control of the market is another major concern. The trick--as with all artists’ estates--is to keep Francis’ work in the public eye without flooding the market.

“With the Gagosian show, we have turned on the faucet a little bit,” she said. “But we have to be careful and think long-term.”

*

Looking ahead to future projects, the documentation being done for appraisals could be the first major step in publishing a catalogue raisonne (complete list) of Francis’ work, she said. In addition, an archive--containing everything from exhibition reviews to samples of his painting techniques and snapshots of his friends--is being compiled as a resource for students, scholars and curators.

Indeed the Francis headquarters is chock-full of his multifaceted legacy, now consolidated under one roof for the sake of economy and efficiency. The Litho Shop, formerly located in Santa Monica, has been moved to the Venice building where Francis had a longer lease. Established in 1976 to produce Francis’ lithographs but recently merged into Lapis Press, under the direction of Jacob Samuel, the shop is producing the final prints approved by Francis and taking on new projects with other artists.

The future of the press is open--like nearly everything else in the estate--but it has revenue producing potential. Currently, Lapis’ inventory of books is being sold. “Sam Francis: Saturated Blue, Writings From the Notebooks,” a collection of excerpts from Francis’ journals, was published last summer. No new books are in process, but the press may resume its book-publishing venture, Burchett-Lere said.