Insight into Sam Francis' painting techniques through the analytical study of twenty-eight artworks made between 1946 and 1992

摘要

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.