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Zahara Schatz (1916–99) created modern decorative arts from metal and laminated plastic. From the 1940s–70s, Schatz experimented with Plexiglas, an aircraft-grade plastic that offered fantastic optical clarity and opportunities to explore color and reflection. Working in her Berkeley, California, studio, she arranged “inclusions”—or pieces of wire, screen, bright metal, and tinted plastic—between two sheets of Plexiglas softened by heat or solvent. To add color, she painted layers in translucent, opaque, and metallic pigments. Some of her lamps conducted electrical current through copper wire imbedded in Plexiglas; the example on display utilizes a spiral-shaped copper tube as a base and channel for the lamp cord. Schatz also created two-dimensional artwork that she called “planar layered paintings,” in addition to molded sculpture, decorated plates, jewelry, and architectural elements—all in translucent Plexiglas. See “California Modernist Women: Groundbreaking Creativity” on display, post-security, in Harvey Milk Terminal 1 and online at: https://bit.ly/CaliforniaModernistWomen
This image was posted on February 15, 2023.