Barbara Stauffacher Solomon. Breaking all the Rules.

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Where

Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion

When

September 21, 2019 – December 31, 2019

Where

Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion

When

September 21, 2019 – December 31, 2019

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon (b. 1928) is a renowned San Francisco-based graphic and landscape designer best known for her 1966 supergraphics at The Sea Ranch in Northern California. Solomon’s iconic style of mixing Swiss Modernism with West Coast Pop pioneered a fresh, new look that came to be called California Cool and is recognized as a seminal moment in the history of graphic design.


Barbara Stauffacher Solomon working


In 1990, SFMOMA mounted an exhibition of Solomon’s Ping Pong Table paintings. The paintings are the same size as actual ping pong tables. Her intent was to use the ping pong table's green rectangle to evoke the green rectangles of parks, gardens, public squares, and parking lots, a theme she explored in her 1998 book Green Architecture and the Agrarian Garden. Elements of the SFMOMA exhibition are recreated at the A+D Center: paintings paired ping pong tables that can be used by visitors.

Breaking all the Rules references architecture, landscape architecture, and graphic design. The exhibition features a new interior super graphic designed by Solomon that was hand-painted by a sign painter; a Ping Pong Pavilion; and an extensive selection of Solomon’s drawings from the 1980s to the present.


Watch McCann Sign Company paint this interior Supergraphic newly designed by Barbara Stauffacher Solomon.


This exhibition is organized by Brooke Hodge, Director of Architecture and Design.

Generous support is provided by Roswitha Kima Smale and L.J. Cella.

Additional funding is provided by Jim Gaudineer & Tony Padilla, and Donna J. MacMillan.

Exhibition Season Sponsors: David Kaplan & Glenn Ostergaard, Brautigam-Kaplan Foundation, the Herman & Faye Sarkowsky Charitable Foundation, the Mary Ingebrand-Pohlad Foundation, and Yvonne & Steve Maloney.

Exhibition Highlights

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon with “Exit” sign mock-up at Demonstration House, The Sea Ranch, California,
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon with “Exit” sign mock-up at Demonstration House, The Sea Ranch, California, 1965
Colored pencil and graphite on paper
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, Blue Wave #1, 2018
Colored pencil, correction fluid, graphite, and collage on paper
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, Balls #1, 2019
Colored pencil, correction fluid, graphite, and collage on paper
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, Ball Falls, 2019
Installation view of Barbara Stauffacher Solomon’s Ping Pong paintings in Visionary San Francisco
Installation view of Barbara Stauffacher Solomon’s Ping Pong paintings in Visionary San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1990
Gouache on vellum on paper
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, California is Horrified, 1990
collage and graphite on vellum
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, Design For Garden, 1991
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, What Price Liberty, 1991, collage on vellum
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, What Price Liberty, 1991
Main gallery with ping pong tables and artworks on the walls People playing ping pong in the gallery Drawings and painted ping pong tables on the walls of the gallery Drawings on the wall of the gallery Ping pong tables, drawings and artworks in the gallery People playing ping pong in the gallery Ping pong paddles and artworks Ping pong paddles and balls

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