Monday, August 27, 2007

Sam Francis and the ramshackle rancher







American Sam Francis (1923-1994) is widely regarded as one of the most important representatives of Abstract Expressionism.


When I was a teenager I babysat for close family friends who had 3 boys and lived in a ramshackle rancher in a suburb of LA. Typically out of cash they had to scrape together loose change to pay me. The house had a yard of broken toys and tall weeds, rooms of clutter and chaos and on every wall of the house a large original painting by their friend Sam Francis.


After the kids disappeared into adulthood, their parents became Hare Krishnas and disappeared into the backstreets of New Dehli. But what happened to the paintings? Are they stacked in an "All You Can Store"? Did they garage sale them for a chant? Just what?

2 comments:

AMGallegos said...

You should have swiped a couple while you had the chance...you'd probably still be living off them. But maybe since they were on the road to becoming Hare Krishnas, you could have just asked you they would have given you one?

CJGallegos said...

Oh, I was so stupid!