Currently on display at the University at Buffalo's Anderson Gallery is a rarely seen collection of the acclaimed abstract expressionist painter Sam Francis. Anyone familiar with Francis's renowned explorations in pure color will no doubt be intrigued by the title of the exhibition, which is simply Black and White.

The exhibition consists mainly of Francis's foray into black-and-white lithographs from early-1960s to early-1970s, which served mainly as rough drafts to his later multi-colored paintings or prints. While the technique of lithographing is quite technical, it is obvious from this exhibition that this untraditional art form yields rather spectacular results that provide insights into the painting or prints that they inspire or are copied from.

Such works by Francis as Opened, Metal Cloud and Dark Egg are bold and daring arrangements of shapes that come across in a starker manner due to their grayscale rendering. Only one lithograph from this exhibition is in color ( Coral Poles), which is made up of brilliant bursts of paint that cascade across the canvass in a seemingly random manner. The catalog for the exhibition makes quite clear, however, that these works are "the product of a labor-intensive process that Francis makes appear effortless."

While to some, most of Francis's work can seem like impenetrable artistic endeavors, it helps to understand some of the things that Francis was interested in. Before studying art, he studied medicine and psychoanalysis. Indeed, many of his paintings and prints have the feel of ink blotters commonly used in psychological analysis.

Francis also had a keen interest in Zen, which manifests in his painting and prints in many different ways. How exactly, they come across is not ever explicitly revealed, which leads to one of the more interesting aspects of Francis's work. The work is totally open in there interpretive possibilities. People attending this exhibition could quite easily get lost in arguing over the possible meaning behind these spectacular lithographs.

Sam Francis's Black and White exhibition is going to be on display until May 25, so if you are a modern art enthusiast, get to the Anderson Gallery to check out these rare pieces. Click here for more information.

Click here for more information on the process of lithographing to get a better idea of what this exhibition is all about.