Abstract
The present paper proposes an overview of the painting materials experimented with over the years by Sam Francis, leading figure of the post-World War II American painting, through the analytical study of an extended number of paint samples supplied by the Sam Francis Foundation. In total, 279 samples taken from twenty-eight artworks made between 1946 and 1992, were analyzed by Raman, FTIR and Py–GC/MS techniques. The obtained results revealed the Francis’ preference in terms of pigments, i.e., phthalocyanine blues and greens, and outlined unconventional combination of binder media.
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Notes
Sam Francis quoted in Betty Freeman, Sam Francis: Ideas and Paintings (unpublished manuscript), 1969, 75; copy in Sam Francis archives.
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Acknowledgments
The authors sincerely thank Tom Learner, Head of the Science Department at the Getty Conservation Institute, for his insight and his expertise that greatly assisted this research, and Catherine Schmidt-Patterson, associate scientist from the same institute, for her assistance with the Raman instrumentation. The authors would like also to express their gratitude to Markus Gross, chief conservator, Beyeler Foundation, for providing us paint fragments from around the world (1958–1960), and David Strivay, University of Liège, for his technical support.
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Defeyt, C., Mazurek, J., Zebala, A. et al. Insight into Sam Francis’ painting techniques through the analytical study of twenty-eight artworks made between 1946 and 1992. Appl. Phys. A 122, 991 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-016-0485-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-016-0485-x