Apollo's+Pool

Date: 1993
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/2002/2002.85.3_2a.jpg?itok=nQoiYrgm width="345" height="285" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/apollos-pool-71792"]] || Title: **Apollo's Pool**

Artist: **June Schwarcz** Born: Denver, Colorado 1918 Died: Sausalito, California 2015

Medium: enameled electroformed copper foil Dimensions: 3 x 9 1/4 x 9 1/4 in. (7.6 x 23.5 x 23.5 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Kenneth R. Trapp in honor of June Schwarcz

Accession: 2002.85.3 || For over fifty years, June Schwarcz has been both fearless and experimental in her approach to enameling. Over the decades that she has been creating, Schwarcz's bowls and abstract vessels have come to be synonymous with the medium itself. Working from her Sausalito home studio, Schwarcz begins her process with a three dimensional maquette made out of paper. Next, she builds the vessel using thin copper sheets or metal mesh. She then has the form electroplated to render it sturdy enough to undergo the enameling process. Fin ally, she carefully applies enamel.
 * Biographical Information: **

After studying at the Pratt Institute, June Schwarcz worked as an industrial designer for a number of years. In 1954, a short course in enameling at the Denver Art Museum was the spark for a whole new direction and life’s work. Within months, she had set up a studio in Sausalito and has continued to innovate and create new works and techniques. Although 90, she continues to work and create new art.

Fascinated by the complexities of enameling, a process in which glass fuses to metal when fired at high temperatures, Schwarcz began experimenting and was soon breaking new ground by enameling electroplated gold, silver and copper forms. In the beginning she used pre-made metal forms as the base to which applied enamel. Quickly, she proceeded to hammer the metal base of her vessels, incorporating different techniques to produce complex and intricately fabricated pieces that characterize the unique artistry of her work.

"I'm very drawn to subtle colorations and the quality of light, maybe because I live with a lot of fog -- or maybe I like light behind a little bit of obscurity. Lots of people wish I'd do brighter, stronger things, but by now I figure, 'I'm old and I can do what I want,'"

Traveling with her scientist husband, Schwarcz is influenced by a wide range of art and cultures. Living in Connecticut, she was able to visit New York City, where she exhibited in the inaugural exhibition of the Museum of Contemporary Craft (now the Museum of Arts & Design). She has since exhibited and is in the permanent collections of museums across the nation. In 1998, the San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum presented June Schwarcz: Forty Years/Forty Pieces, which toured the country for two years. In the fall of 2008, the Fresno Art Museum showed June Schwarz: Expressionism’s Fire and the Resonant Form.

Regarded by many as the nation’s leading enamellists, June Schwarcz was honored as a gold medal winner in 1998 by the American Craft Council, who also honored her as an ACC Fellow in 1987. The California State Assembly has recognized her as a Living Treasure of California. In 2009, she joins the pantheon of James Renwick Alliance Masters of the Medium. Source: James Renwick Alliance, http://www.jra.org/Resources/Schwarcz.htm
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Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page Oral History Interview
 * Links: **