36 - Barbara Stauffacher Solomon

CUBE, 2019
Lacquer over wood
24 x 24 inches
Courtesy the artist

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon (b. 1928) changed the world of design with her legendary life-sized environmental graphics. She is best known for launching what is now known as Supergraphics–bold, hard-edge, painted wall graphics that respond to architectural space–at Sea Ranch, the utopian Northern California coastal community, in the late 1960s. Her modular cube objects, as seen here, serve as both functional tables and seats, fusing architecture and typography.

Solomon began her career studying in Switzerland at the Basel School of Design, where she studied with Armin Hofmann, a graphic designer instrumental in developing the Swiss Style of typography, including the typeface Helvetica. In San Francisco, she collaborated with landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and others, creating the award-winning, iconic Sea Ranch logo featuring a ram's horns, and painting the first Supergraphics on the walls of its buildings. Over many decades, her career has encompassed many disciplines from dance to painting, design, architecture, and public art. Most recently, she has devoted her time to making books incorporating her love of graphic design and typography. Solomon has exhibited around the world and was recently the subject of a solo exhibition at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where her work is also in the permanent collection. A forthcoming solo exhibition is currently being planned by the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art and the Palm Springs Art Museum.

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