From the mid-1950s onward, Francis’s style underwent a dramatic transformation. In 1955, he exhibited seven works in Tendances Actuelles (“Current Trends”) at the Kunsthalle Bern, marking his first participation in a museum exhibition. The exhibition focused on abstract painting, including Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel, and featured artists such as Jackson Pollock and Jean-Paul Riopelle. In early 1956, Francis held his first solo exhibition at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York. That same year, seven of his large-scale paintings were included in Twelve Americans at the Museum of Modern Art, helping to establish his position within the contemporary art scene and the development of abstract painting. During this period, from 1956 to 1958, he also undertook mural commissions for the Kunstmuseum Basel and the lecture hall of Sogetsu Kaikan.
Against this backdrop, Untitled 56-005 reveals many of the characteristics that would come to define Francis’s mature style: an asymmetrical composition, a sense of improvisation, vibrant colors cutting diagonally across an expansive white field, splashes and drips of paint, and concentrated masses of color gathered at the edges of the canvas. Unlike his earlier works, in which color dominated the entire surface, white now assumes a far more significant role. This development can also be seen in Japan Line (1957). As its title suggests, the work evokes Eastern concepts of emptiness or “void” (ku) associated with Japanese painting, as well as calligraphic brushwork. The seemingly infinite expanse of white and the energetic traces of bursting pigment create a powerful sense of released energy. Similar qualities can also be observed in WC 00956 (1956) and WC 008 (1957).
The subtle light that had previously emerged through color now appears to have expanded until light itself envelops the entire pictorial field. In Francis’s work, white is not merely a background; rather, color seems to emanate in order to reveal and activate this space of emptiness. At the same time, white itself changes in response to color, creating a dynamic interplay between the two. Watercolor proved particularly well suited to Francis’s artistic vision. Its transparency, the contrasts and intermediate tonalities created by varying pigment density, and its capacity for spontaneity, movement, and freedom all enliven and expand his pictorial space.
In works such as WC 00658 and another white blue, both created in 1958, white takes on an even more active role. As seen in the contemporaneous oil paintings of the White Line series, white becomes a single line—a river, a road—that divides and penetrates the surrounding colors, suggesting a pathway of light cutting through the composition.