Sam Tchakalian

Art Brokerage: Sam Tchakalian Chinese Artist: b. 1929-2004. Sam Tchakalian was born in Shanghai, China, in 1929. Sam lived in China during the first 17 years of his life. After World War II and much civil and political unrest in China, along with his brothers Manuel and Edward, the family relocated to San Francisco. After completing his military service and returning to the Bay Area, Tchakalian became immersed within the San Francisco art scene and, for the first time, started to think about a full-time career as an artist. It was a busy time for creative arts in San Francisco with art schools such as the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) flush with students on the GI Bill and legendary instructors such as Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Hassel Smith, and Richard Diebenkorn all weighing into the Beat era mix. Sam Tchakalian's work of the late 1950s and 1960s exhibit indications of classic bay area abstract expressionism. Still, he also maintains an individual style and applies collage throughout many of his works during this period. It was not until the late 1960s that his work developed into a more minimalist and large-scale format focused on the purity of paint and color often scraped across the surface. These planks of color began in 1968 and continued to develop. The work from this period and on has been described as 'mature' with a focus on Tchakalian's exceptional application of paint and color exhibiting the distinct hand of the artist. Tchakalian's bold and energetic large-scale color-field paintings with thick texture and muted colors would become his identifiable and personal style. Listings wanted.