Saturday 30 January 2010, 18.00

The Painter Sam Francis, Jeffrey Perkins, USA 2008, 85 min, Betacam, colour and b&w. English and Japanese with English subtitles. Screened in BetacamSP.

Sam Francis (1923–1994), a second-generation abstract expressionist painter born in California, began to know success in post-war Paris, where he lived during the '50s. He also spent a number of years in Japan, and married a Japanese woman. Director and close friend Jeffrey Perkins filmed Francis regularly in his studios in Santa Monica and Venice, California, between 1969 and 1992, conducting a lengthy interview with him in 1973. 

To probe a personality as complex and mysterious as Francis – creator of a singular but diverse body of abstract works where colour predominated – Perkins talks to his friends, family and fellow artists, including Ed Ruscha, James Turrell, Bruce Conner, Alfred Leslie, and architect Arata Isozaki. The film also features commentary from art historians, curators and museum directors, including Pontus Hulten, former director of the Centre Georges Pompidou; Walter Hopps, founding director of the Menil Collection, Houston; and Paul Shimmel, chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles.

Tate Modern  Starr Auditorium
Free, no bookings taken
Seated on a first-come, first-served basis

  

Jeffrey Perkins

Born in New York, where he now lives and works, Jeffrey Perkins is an artist and filmmaker.

Stan Brakhage on Gregory Markopoulos (2001); Music to Film (2002).