Herman Roderick Volz (1904–1990) was a Swiss-American painter, muralist, lithographer, set designer, decorative artist and ceramist.
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.
Volz's assistants included Jose Ramis, John Saccaro, John Thomas Hayes (Tom Hayes), Carlton Williams, Peter Lowe, Percy Freer, Robert P. McChesney, Alden Clark and Ernest Lenshaw.
[6] 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 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.’[6] From 1944 to 1948 he worked in Hollywood, as a scenic artist and technical director at Actors' Laboratory Theatre and he designed sets for MGM and Paramount Studios.