Sherron Francis | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1940 |
| Nationality | U. S. citizen |
| Education | Kansas City Art Institute, Indiana University |
| Movement | Abstract expressionism, Color field, Lyrical abstraction |
Sherron Francis (born 1940) is an American artist known for abstract expressionist and color field paintings in a mode that some critics call lyrical abstraction. During a career that began in 1969, she showed frequently in the galleries of New York and other cities. Reviewers described her paintings as "calming, celestial forms"[1] and one said they were "alive with a variety of evanescent hues and tints".[2] During the height of her career, she made sales to prominent collectors and saw her works added to major public collections. Late in her career, she made wall-mounted works in clay and, especially, wood. A critic said the latter had dynamic balance, "as if indicating arrested motion".[3]
Francis began art studies at the University of Oklahoma in 1958. She subsequently earned an undergraduate degree from the Kansas City Institute of Art and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Indiana University. Taking advice from Dan Christensen, who was a friend and fellow student, she moved to Manhattan to begin her professional career in 1968. She showed figurative paintings in her first solo exhibition, held at the Bowery Gallery in 1970. Three years later, she transitioned to abstractions that one critic said created "pictorial force and unity through the action of sheer color".[2] Over the next ten years, the paintings she made in this style often drew praise from critics. One of her last exhibitions of this period was a show assembled by the art historian and author Jack Flam called "Artists Choose Artists". As the title suggests, paintings by Francis appeared in the exhibition at the request of one or more of the sixteen participating artists, a group that included Carl Andre, Jim Dine, Brice Marden, Larry Poons, Richard Serra, and Frank Stella.
Throughout her career, Francis has followed her own lead, taking part fully in the New York art scene much of the time and withdrawing when it has suited her to do so. When, in the mid-1980s, art sales began to fall off, she faced a choice: either change her style to conform to new tastes or, as one reviewer put it, "extricate herself from the game".[1] Opting for the latter, she decided to seek ways to support herself as her own boss. Over the next few decades, she purchased and successfully operated a succession of commercial fishing boats, made exotic wood trellises for sale in a Manhattan home design store, and ran a shop selling antiques. Of her time spent fishing, she told an interviewer, "I was an artist before, but I was broke, and I like to eat. At first, the days [spent fishing] seemed very long, but it's wonderful. It's like being on a vacation."[4]
In 2022, the Lincoln Glenn Gallery mounted a retrospective exhibition of paintings made during the height of her career. The show drew lengthy reviews. One says, "Many important women abstractionists are finally receiving the attention they deserve for their place in the history of art (like Lynne Drexler and Elaine de Kooning), and Sherron Francis should be no exception."[1] Speaking of the show, Francis told an interviewer, “It’s a wonderful thing. It doesn’t usually happen this way.”[5]
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