Larry Francis
Main Street, Oil On Canvas, 18" x 24"
Gross McCleaf Gallery is pleased to present Hill Town Paintings, a new solo exhibition by Larry Francis. Recognized for his attentive cityscapes and neighborhood views painted in and around Philadelphia, Francis turns to the northwest neighborhoods of Roxborough and Manayunk, mapping their steep terrain with measured light, clear geometry, and the small choreographies of everyday life in this body of work.
Across these recent paintings, Francis constructs space with precision and care, guiding the eye through streets, storefronts, parks, and porches, familiar places animated by the particular tilt of sun and spatial architecture. He acknowledges the lineage that shapes his outlook, “Hopper and the Ashcan School painters of urban life have had a strong influence on me. I work on constructing the space of a painting, building it forward toward the viewer, and exploring the receding space of the painting. This effort gives me a sense of the sculptural dynamic of the painted area.” Figures, vehicles, and street furniture details serve as wayfinders, guiding viewers' eyes through light and shadow.
Entrance to the City, Oil On Canvas, 24" x 48"
Francis’ pictorial decisions balance clarity and tension. Shapes and colors are adjusted with patience until the composition locks into place:
“I want to feel that everything, every shape and each color, is in the right place…Entrance to the City, is a good example. The addition of figures, poles, or of changing a shadow can be difficult decisions: they may add to the disjointed feel, or they may create a more harmonious whole.” That calibration, adding or subtracting a pole, a passerby, or a shadow, serves the original spark that drew Francis to the subject without overstating it.
Gorgas Park, Spring, Oil On Canvas, 18" x 18"
Human presence is central in Francis’ work, yet light remains his most consistent protagonist. The everyday movements of people create what he calls a ‘street ballet’, resulting in a series of on-site encounters that often influence and energize the scenes he paints en plein air. Still, it is the way light settles on these subjects that bridges a Larry Francis scene together. While he refines skies, cloud patterns, or the hues of objects and clothing, he keeps the orientation of light stable to sustain believable depth. “In general, direction of light and time of day stay about the same for the life of the painting, the direction of light usually being a critical part of why I settled on a particular subject.”
Ultimately, Francis characterizes his practice as an ongoing search for what a place feels like. “As a painter, you are, in the main, thinking of painting forms, making colors that work, arranging and measuring the intensity of light and shadow. I am always searching for what the city feels like. There can never be too much life in a painting. I am just scratching the surface.” Hill Town Paintings gathers this pursuit into a focused constellation of works that balance structure and sensation, offering viewers a resonant experience of Philadelphia.
Intersection, 12" x 12", Oil On Canvas
Larry Francis is a Philadelphia native who has painted on the streets of the city from the early part of his life in art. He studied painting at PAFA, where he was awarded the J. Henry Schiedt European Traveling Scholarship in 1970. His first career solo show was held at the Peale House Galleries of PAFA in 1979.
Over the years, Francis has received a number of awards, including the Julius Hallgarten Prize from the Academy of Design, New York in 1972, the Mary Butler Award from the Fellowship of PAFA in 1996, the Charles Knox Smith Founders Prize at the Woodmere Art Museum in 2002 and a Prize for Painting at Cheltenham Art Center in 2011.
His work is in many public and private collections, including the Noyes Museum of New Jersey, Woodmere Museum in Chestnut Hill, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Federal Reserve Bank, Philadelphia. Francis is represented by Gross McCleaf Gallery, where he has had a dozen solo shows.
Larry Francis has been showing with Gross McCleaf Gallery since 1982, and is currently an instructor in painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied from 1967 to 1971.
