Herman Roderick Volz (1904–1990) was a Swiss-American

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

ist,

lithographer Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

set designer Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but in recent years, are mostly trained ...

decorative art ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...

ist and

ceramist Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take forms including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is one of the visual arts. Whil ...

. He was politically active, vocal and often made social statements through his imagery and he was especially taken by the industrial horizon of his adopted home of

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

. Many of his art pieces done for the Federal Art Project (FAP), for example, were of men at work and of docks, piers, and railroad yards.

Biography

Herman Roderick Volz was born December 25, 1904, in Zürich, Switzerland. His first training was under the tutelage of his grandfather, a master in

decorative arts ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...

. He then started his formal training at the Art und Gewerbeschule in Zürich, the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna, and travelled for four years in France, Spain, Italy, Africa and Holland, eventually moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1933. By 1938 he became a US citizen.

Early work

During the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, Volz was appointed to the position of supervisor in the Northern California Art Project and supervisor for the Federal Building mural project at the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE). He painted the two large murals on the front panels of Timothy Pflueger's Federal Building, entitled "The Conquest of the West by Land" and "The Conquest of the West by Sea." The two-part mural measured sixty feet by one-hundred sixty feet. Volz's assistants included Jose Ramis, John Saccaro,

John Thomas Hayes John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

(Tom Hayes), Carlton Williams, Peter Lowe, Percy Freer, Robert P. McChesney, Alden Clark and

Ernest Lenshaw Ernest is a given name derived from Germanic word ''ernst'', meaning "serious". Notable people and fictional characters with the name include: People *Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553–1595), son of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor *Ernest, M ...

. Volz created two large, 50′ x 45′ low-relief polished marble mosaic panels, representing organic science and inorganic science, as part of "Art in Action" at the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1940. These were later installed at San Francisco City College. The two mosaic panels took two years to install with a staff of eight workmen, Juan Breda served as assistant mosaicist for the project. The murals are named ''Organic and Inorganic Science''. The imagery of the mosaics represent fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics with text accompanying the mural that reads ‘''Give me a base and I move the world.''’

Later work

From 1944 to 1948 he worked in

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

, as a scenic artist and technical director at

Actors' Laboratory Theatre The Actors' Laboratory Theatre was a politically active theatre company and acting school founded in January 1941 by Roman Bohnen, Jules Dassin, Dick Flake, Lloyd Bridges, Danny Mann, Jeff Corey, Mary Virginia Farmer and J. Edward Bromberg. During ...

and he designed sets for

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

and

Paramount Studios Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest ...

. In the 1960s he became a resident of

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

. Volz died on December 30, 1990, in San Jose, California.

Work

Exhibitions

* 1927, Berlin National Exhibition * 1937,

Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...

* 1938–1941, San Francisco Art Association (SFAA) * 1939, Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) * 1942, solo exhibition at the E.B. Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento

Memberships

Council of Allied Arts in Los Angeles, California Watercolor Society (renamed the California National Watercolor Society in 1967)

References

External links

Oral history interview with Herman Volz, June 27, 1964 from the Archives of American Art (Smithsonian Institution)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Volz, Herman 1990 deaths 1904 births Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area Artists from Zürich People from San Jose, California Federal Art Project artists Painters from California American muralists Swiss emigrants to the United States