Norman Zammitt
Norman Zammitt (b. Toronto, 1931; d. Pasadena, California, 2007) made sculptures, paintings, and lithographs that utilize color theory to capture the mystical qualities of natural light. Zammitt was raised by a Sicilian father and a Mohawk mother in Ontario. The family then moved onto the Kahnawá:ke Reservation near Montreal, and later to Buffalo, New York, finally settling in Southern California when Zammitt was fourteen. Celebrated by John Baldessari, his classmate at the Otis Art Institute (now the Otis College of Art and Design), Zammitt was a key yet under-historicized figure in the development of Los Angeles’s Light and Space movement alongside the likes of Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, and Mary Corse. In 1964, Zammitt initiated a series of transparent, laminated rectangular sculptures, which interact with natural luminescence to create astonishing abstract visual effects. Nearly a decade later, in 1973, still enthralled by the transcendental California light, he began the Band Paintings for which he is best known, a suite of ethereal works based on a logarithmic system of color progression developed by the artist. The mathematically calculated transitions between hues of the Band Paintings smooth their hard edges into meditative spaces reminiscent of sunsets and landscapes. In the Fractal series that followed in 1988, he applied these same color theories to looser, more improvisational abstract compositions inspired by chaos theory and formally resembling the titular class of geometric forms. “My goal,” Zammitt wrote, “is to create intellectual works that bring about a highly emotional response.”
The survey exhibition Norman Zammitt: Gradations is currently on view at The Palm Springs Art Museum. Other solo exhibitions have been held at the Pasadena City College Art Gallery, California (1988); Corcoran Gallery of Art (now the National Gallery of Art), Washington, DC (1978); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1977); and Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California (1968). Notable group exhibitions include Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950–1970, Getty Center, Los Angeles (2011–12), and The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting, 1980–1895 (1987) and American Sculpture of the Sixties (1967), both at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Zammitt’s work is held in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California; Palm Springs Art Museum, California; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; Seattle Art Museum; and Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Norman Zammitt, 1977
Born 1931, Toronto, Canada
Died 2007, Pasadena, California
EDUCATION
1957
AA Degree, Pasadena City College, Pasadena, CA
1961
MFA, Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA
SELECTED SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2024
Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California, Norman Zammitt: Gradations
2023
Karma, Los Angeles, Band Paintings 1973–1992
2014
Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL
2012
Carter Citizen Gallery, Culver City
2011
Michael Lord Gallery, Palm Springs, California
2000
Elysium, Studio 13, Los Angeles
1998
Elysium, Studio 13, Los Angeles
1995-96
Elysium, Studio 13, Los Angeles
1988
Brandstarter Gallery, Loma Linda University, Riverside, CA
Pasadena,City College Art Gallery, Pasadena, CA
1984
Ace Gallery, Los Angeles
1978
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
1977
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
1969
Landau-Alan Gallery, New York
Felix Landau Gallery, Los Angeles
1968
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
1966
Felix Landau Gallery, Los Angeles
1962
Felix Landau Gallery, Los Angeles
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023
New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM, Shadow and Light
2022
Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, Light, Space, Surface: Works from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
2018
Heather James Fine Art, San Francisco, California: North and South
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Logan, UT, Collecting On The Edge: Part II
2017
San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA, Light and Air
2016
Seattle Museum of Art, Seattle, WA, Light and Space
2015
Greene Exhibitions, Los Angeles, Is This That
2013
Heather James Gallery, Palm Desert, CA, Abstraction: 1960’s to Today
Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA, Made in the USA
2011-12
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Crosscurrents in L.A. Paintings and Sculpture 1950-1970
2011
Newspace Gallery, Los Angeles, Pure Light and Space: painting and sculpture from the 1970’s
David Richard Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM, So Cal: Southern California Painting: 1970’s Painting Per Se
2009
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA, Exceptionally Gifted: Recent Donations to the Norton Simon Museum
2007
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, So Cal: Southern California Art of the 1960’s and 70’s from LACMA’s collection
2006
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA, Translucence, Southern California Art from the 1960’s & 70’s
George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, All in the Family
Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, Otis: Nine Decades of Los Angeles Art
2004
OCCA, Santa Ana, CA, Heroes and Heroines:Working Artists Over 70
2000
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA, From Paris to Pasadena: An Overview of Color Lithography, 1890-1975
1999
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA, Art From Stone: Prints from the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, 1960-1970
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA, Tamarind Collection
1998-99
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Contemporary Collection
1998
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, CA
1987
Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, Art in Los Angeles, 1988: Profound Visions
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting, 1890-1985
Haags Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, Netherlands
1986
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Robert O Anderson Building Inaugural Exhibit
Cirrus Gallery, Los Angeles, A California Collection
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Contrasts
1985
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, New Acquisitions
1984
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Focus on California
1981
Art Center, Pasadena, CA, Decade: Los Angeles Painting in the Seventies
1979
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC, California Artists
1970
San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco CA, A Plastic Presence
1967
Hansen Gallery, San Francisco, CA, Plastics West Coast
Los Angeles County Art Museum, Los Angeles, American Sculpture of the Sixties
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia PA, American Sculpture of the Sixties
Museum of Modern Art, New York, Show of New Acquisitions
Los Angeles County Art Museum, Los Angeles, The 1960’s, Painting and Sculpture from the Museum Collection
1965
Museum of Modern Art, New York, Young West Coast Artists
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Joseph Hirschhorn Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, California
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C
Long Beach Museum of Art, California
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California
Museum of Modern Art, New York City
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Logan, Utah
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California
Palm Springs Art Museum, California
Palm Springs Desert Museum, California
Rowland Insistute of Science, Cambridge, Massachusetts
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California
Seattle Art Museum, Washington
Stanford University, Stanford, California
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
AWARDS
1967
Tamarind Institute Lithography Workshop Fellowship
1968
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
1991
Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant
2000
Los Angeles City Council Resolution Commendation
Los Angeles City Council Declaration “Norman Zammitt Day” September 16th
