Untitled
1969
Helen Pashgian (American, 1934-)
Not on View

Helen Pashgian was the only female artist associated with the Light and Space movement, a group of California minimalists that included Robert Irwin, Larry Bell and Peter Alexander. These artists were concerned with an issue central to art making: the perception of light and color in space. In pursuit of these elements, Pashgian helped to pioneer the use of industrial materials such as cast acrylic, resin and glass. The Pasadena-based artist became interested in cast polyester resin in the early 1960s and almost immediately began to use it to investigate how the ostensibly intangible character of color and light could be explored, controlled and even manipulated. Pashgian’s reductive geometric sculptures—cast in clear resin, in a subtle hue, or in a rainbow of deep reds, greens and blues (not incidentally, the primary colors of light)—are able to focus solely on these fundamental principles of art because of their impeccable, and thereby undistracting, finish.

Details

  • Artist Name: Helen Pashgian (American, 1934-)
  • Title: Untitled
  • Date: 1969
  • Medium: Cast sphere, colored polyester resin
  • Dimensions: 7 in. diameter (17.8 cm)
  • Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of the Artist
  • Accession Number: P.2007.1.2
  • Copyright: © Norton Simon Museum

Object Information

Helen Pashgian, donated 9 January 2007 to;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.

Helen Pashgian: Working in Light

  • Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, 2010-01-23 to 2010-04-11

Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970

  • Martin-Gropius-Bau, 2012-03-15 to 2012-06-10
  • J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011-10-01 to 2012-02-05

Translucence: Southern California Art from the 1960s & 1970s

  • Norton Simon Museum, 2006-05-12 to 2006-08-28

Exceptionally Gifted: Recent Donations to the Norton Simon Museum (2002-2008)

  • Norton Simon Museum, 2009-04-17 to 2009-08-31
  • Peabody, Rebecca, et al., Pacific Standard Time: Los Angeles Art, 1945-1980, 2011, Fig. 4-9 p. 196
  • Eliel, Carol, Helen Pashgian, 2014, Bottom p. 46

Additional Artwork by Artist

Untitled Helen Pashgian 1969
Untitled Helen Pashgian 1969

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