Light on Fire:The Art and Life of Sam Francis -- ONSITE at Mechanics' Institute | Mechanics' Institute

You are here

Light on Fire:The Art and Life of Sam Francis -- ONSITE at Mechanics' Institute
with author Gabrielle Selz in Conversation with Bay Area Writer Patricia Albers

Masks are strongly encouraged for unvaccinated individuals.

Drawing on exclusive interviews and private correspondence, Gabrielle Selz traces the extraordinary life of this complex and charismatic artist who first learned to paint as a former air-corps pilot encased for three years in a full-body cast. While still a young man, Francis saw his color-saturated paintings fetch the highest prices of any living artist. His restless desire resulted in five marriages and homes on three continents. His entrepreneurial spirit led to founding a museum, a publishing company, a reforestation program and several non-profits. With settings from World War II San Francisco to post-war Paris, New York, Tokyo and Los Angeles, Selz writes an intimate portrait of a man who sought to resolve in art the contradictions he couldn’t resolve in life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gabrielle Selz is an award-winning author. Her books include the first comprehensive biography of the revered American painter, Sam Francis, Light on Fire, and Unstill Life: Art and Love in the Age of Abstraction. Her essays and art reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Los Angeles Times, Literary Hub, Hyperallgic, SquareCylinder, Art & Object, Art Papers, The Rumpus, and The Huffington Post among others. She makes her home in Oakland, California.

 

 

Patricia Albers is the author of Joan Mitchell, Lady Painter: A Life (Knopf), the first biography of the Abstract Expressionist painter. Albers’s previous book, Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti, earned a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was named a Best Book of 1999 by the Library Journal. She also published Tina Modotti and the Mexican Renaissance, the catalog for the exhibition of Modotti’s photographs that she co-curated for Stockholm’s Moderna Museet and the Arles Photography Festival. Albers lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her current project is Everything is Photograph: A Life of André Kertész to be published by Other Press.

 

.

 

 

 

Buy books online at: Alexanderbook.com

Mechanics' Institute Members & Friends of the Authors Free

Public sliding scale, $5 to $10

 

Meet the Author(s)

Admission: 
Members of Mechanics' Institute Free
Public Sliding Scale $5 to $10
Register now ›
Location: 
4th Floor Meeting Room
Questions?
Information Desk - 415-393-0102
Register now by using the form below or calling 415-393-0116.
 

Future Meet the Author(s)

Oct 4 - 6:00pm

California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric-and What It Means for America's Power Grid
with author Katherine Blunt of the Wall Street Journal

Oct 5 - 6:00pm

The Right to Read: Book Banning and Censorship
a panel with children's book authors Marcus Ewert, Jasmine Stirling, and Sarah and Ian Hoffman

Oct 18 - 12:00pm

After Sappho
with author Selby Wynn Schwartz in conversation with Professor Loretta Stec

Oct 18 - 6:00pm

San Francisco Past and Present
with authors Alec Scott and Jill K. Robinson

Oct 19 - 6:00pm

Celebrating 150 Years of Cable Cars: Watermusic in the Track
with historians and authors Mike Phipps and Don Holmgren