Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Supergraphics at Moonraker Recreational Center, The Sea Ranch, 1965
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
The Sea Ranch Blue Wave, 2018
Colored pencil, graphite, ink, whiteout on paper
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Untitled (Japanese Pagoda Garden Folly Elevated in Part III Landscapes by Architects (front)
Untitled (Japanese Pagoda Garden Folly Elevated in Part III Landscapes by Architects (back), 1980s
Colored pencil on aged vellum, attached to paper
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Question Quotes 1, 2018
Pigment print collage, gouache, ink, graphite, colored pencil, white-out, cellophane tape, rubber cement, paper
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
CY Not, 2000
Colored pencil, graphite, paper, rubber cement
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Fort Point from Crissy Field, 1993
Colored pencil, graphite, ink, vellum
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Angel Island from Crissy Field, 1993
Colored pencil, graphite, ink, vellum
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Red Boots
Ink, colored pencil, collaged onto heavy paper
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Cover Page: Read Any Good Boots Lately?, 2018
Ink, colored pencil, graphite, white out, rubber cement, photograph print
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Untitled (Green Arrow Breaking Ground), 1980s
Colored pencil and graphite on paper
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
An Urban / Agrarian Landscape, 1987
Colored pencil, graphite, vellum, paper
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Supersigns
"SO", "ASS", "CHEVRON", "STRIPES", "OK", "?", "HEART"
Porcelain enamel on steel
55 x 55 inches, each
140 x 140 cm, each
Edition of 7, each
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
STRIPES, 2023
Colored pencil, graphite, ink, whiteout, rubber cement, paper
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
E.A.T. 2023: Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Video: Barbara Stauffacher Solomon in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Swiss art curator, critic, art historian; with an introduction by Elena Foster, Spanish publisher and art curator.
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Emergency, 1985
Colored pencil, ink, graphite, vellum, paper, cellophane tape
11 x 8.5 inches, each
28 x 21.6 cm, each
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Cut a rectangle out of the forest and it's yours., 1980s
Colored pencil on aged vellum on paper
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Untitled (Green Courts, Passages & Ceilings), 1980s
Graphite, colored pencil, scotch tape, paper, vellum
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
WAVES, 2013
Colored pencil, graphite, ink, rubber cement, paper
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Green Building #1, 1985
Colored pencil, graphite, vellum
11 x 8.5 inches
28 x 21.6 cm
“She is an extraordinary example of an artist … she is a local legend, exerting a lasting influence on SFMOMA and the Bay Area, while having a profound impact on the international design field more broadly.” — Christopher Bedford, Director of SFMOMA, Observer, August 2023
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon with her “Exit” sign, The Sea Ranch, 1965.
Barbara Stauffacher Solomon (1928–2024) was a visionary American artist and designer whose work across painting, drawing, design, and architecture transformed how art defines and inhabits space. Internationally recognized as the originator of Supergraphics—monumental wall paintings that merge art and architecture—she was, above all, a painter and thinker whose formal rigor, wit, and conceptual clarity shaped modern visual culture. A third-generation San Franciscan, she studied painting with David Park at the San Francisco Art Institute and Hans Hofmann at the Art Students League in New York, then trained in design under Armin Hofmann at the Kunstgewerbeschule Basel in Basel, Switzerland. Returning to California in the 1960s, she introduced Helvetica to the United States and developed a modernist sensibility that fused European precision with West Coast experimentation.
Stauffacher Solomon conceived her Supergraphics at The Sea Ranch (1964) alongside life-long friend and collaborator, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, and achieved great acclaim with subsequent public projects including Promenade Ribbon (1995), (1995), San Francisco Embarcadero with Vito Acconci and Stanley Saitowitz, and Turia Gardens (1996), Valencia, Spain with Ricardo Bofill. She later studied architecture at UC Berkeley, publishing Green Architecture and the Agrarian Garden (1988), and received the Rome Prize and an NEA Distinguished Design Fellowship. Her work has been featured at the Whitney Museum, Venice Biennale, Walker Art Center, SFMOMA, BAMPFA, the Graham Foundation, LAX Art, Marin MOCA, and the Palm Springs Art Museum. A posthumous mural along Minna Street, San Francisco, adjacent to SFMOMA, will debut in 2027 as part of the Minna-Natoma Art Corridor Project. A dedicated educator at institutions including UC Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, ILAUD, California College of the Arts, and the San Francisco Art Institute, Solomon left an enduring legacy that continues to inspire artists, designers, and architects alike.
