Norman Zammitt

In pursuit of transcendence through color—probing the oeuvre of an understudied figure in the Light and Space movement This is the first monograph on the work of the American artist Norman Zammitt (1931–2007). Over the course of more than four decades of painting and sculpture, he pursued transcendence through color, which he believed possesses "the power to transform matter into energy, gravity to airiness, compression and bondage to expansion and freedom." Although recognized as a pioneer of Southern California's Light and Space movement, in distinction from many of his peers, Zammitt neither practiced formalism for its own sake nor romanticized materials for their futuristic or industrial appeal. Across mediums, his inquiries remained at once formal, mathematical and spiritual. Alongside a plate section, archival photographs and documents, the essays in this volume chart Zammitt's artistic arc from early surrealist figurations through his innovative laminated-acrylic sculptures, to his luminous Band Paintings, to his magnum opus, Elysium, an immersive, black-lit painting environment.