Samuel Lewis (“Sam”) FRANCIS (1923 - 1994) American painter born in California. Samuel Francis joined the United States Air Force as a pilot in 1943. While convalescing after a flying accident, he took up painting, and became a firm believer in the therapeutic power of art. His work was influenced by the American Action Painting and French Tachisme. He developed a new aesthetic of colour and a new approach to the canvas and the artist’s movements, forming part of the various movements of the time begun and developed by American artists such as Rothko, Pollock, de Kooning and Kline. As a result, Sam Francis is generally regarded as one of the founder members of the second generation of the Abstract Expressionism which emerged in New York in the early 1950s. Sam’s poster… Square and series of different coloured circles on a red background, possibly representing a target. Offset lithograph.