Samuel Lewis Francis, known as Sam Francis, was an American painter, famous for his non-figurative painting, born on 25 June 1923 in San Mateo (California), died on 4 November 1994 in Santa Monica. He developed in his paintings a new aesthetic of colour, a new conception of the canvas, of the artist’s gesture, thus joining the various movements of his time initiated and developed by American artists such as Rothko, Pollock, de Kooning, Kline.