Samuel Francis, said Sam Francis, was born in San Mateo (United States) in 1923. He studied Botany, then Psychology to Berkeley. Pilot of the US Air Forces during the Second World War, his plane crashed and his spinal column was seriously injured.

He received a watercolor set during this long convalescence, and began painting what he saw (sky and clouds, impressions of light, etc.). After his recovering, he began studies of Art to the University of California (1948-1950). In 1950, he settled down in Paris; he stayed more than 10 years in France (Paris, South of France), until 1961.

His first personal exhibition was hold in Paris in 1952. Influenced by the color-field painting, Sam Francis worked with white as a background color, to which he applied differentiating spots of color, which flowed, enclosed or liberated the virgin space. Expressing himself on all formats, the artist worked by series organic forms or mosaics ones, figures or "linen" (1965-1969).

In the second half on the 60s, Sam Francis made paintings of smokes colored, thrown in the sky by helicopters. In the 70s, the artist is interested in Jung's theory of portraits, etc. Later, Sam Francis
played more and more with color with which he splashed canvases, drawings and monotypes without any care to the form (series "immediate paintings").

Sam Francis died in Santa Monica in 1994.