Norman Charles Zammitt (February 3, 1931 – November 16, 2007) was an American artist in Southern California who was at the leading edge of the Light and Space Movement, pioneering with his transparent sculptures in the early 1960s, followed in the 1970s by his large scale luminous color paintings.

Drawing was a consistent pursuit throughout Zammitt's childhood, ignited further, at age 12, by his first sight of an oil painting by a Dutch artist in a gallery window.

His talent in both classic and cartoon art won him national, regional and scholastic awards during his high school years.

These small abstract works were done in oil, pencil, crayon, liquitex, collage and etching, and were enthusiastically received by collectors, launching his professional career.

"...small collages which combined with an active calligraphy with placement of bright colored chips against a mahogany lacquer ground."

6, Henry Hopkins, November 1962[6] Exhibits “Exceptionally Gifted: Recent Donations to the Norton Simon Museum”, NSM, Pasadena, Ca.

References The Dream Colony, Water Hopps, 2017[9] Responding to the assemblage art movement and school of the found or common object, and an interest in the work of Magritte and Bacon, Zammitt embarked on a series of paintings that dealt with the human body and its parts, arms, legs, feet etc.

At such point a hip shape will turn a different color…There is a sensation-seeking aspect to this work which may be related to the researches of so called neo-Dada.

Feeling the influence of New Mexico's light, color, and space, he became more interested in what was happening on his palette than on the canvases.

He began painting on sheets of glass, then acrylic plastic, leading to the start of the transparent sculptures—the first of that genre shown in Los Angeles, California and New York.

"Several years have gone by and Norman Zammitt has turned from highly erotic paintings to the creation of plastic boxes in which he intricately creates the most amazing and subtle color spectacles imaginable."

"What is surprising about these is not their "newness" but their embellishment upon the best traditions of plasticism in 20th century painting – the lessons of Picasso, Mondrian, Pollock and Hofman, among others.

Articles Los Angeles, California Times West, June 4, 1967, "Sculpture of the Sixties", ill. Davis, Douglas, "Art and Technology-The New Combine", Art in America, Jan./Feb.,1968, ill. Davis, Douglas "From New Materials, a Dynamic Sculpture", National Observer, Feb 20, 1967, ill. Los Angeles, California Times Home, Harry Lewis home/collection, January 1970.

I was drawn to it, not by a decorative or superficial attraction to design and its aesthetic application but by something deep within the colors themselves, akin to life itself, spirituality.

To verify his approach, Zammitt inquired of mathematicians at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena to shed light on his process.

Zammitt has taken the idea of mixing color and light beyond the zones of opticality and abstraction and pushed it into the realm of the spirit."

— The Washington Star[18] In an email, Michael Govan, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum, went so far as to nominate some artists for eventual White House display.

"[19] In this series of paintings, Zammitt began exploring the effects of the chaos theory while maintaining the concepts and techniques of color relativity he developed in earlier work.

Differing orders of color mixtures were painted in a spontaneous and chaotic way to bring about relationships that intertwined, intermixed and interpenetrated with each other.

The color relationships were kept in their logarithmic order but their application on the canvas was brought together through the spontaneous drawing and painting of shapes resembling the fracturing, cracking and the breaking up of space.

Articles/media features “A Painting for my Los Angeles”, Unframed LACMA blog, Scott Tenant, January 31, 2013 Amerika (America Illustrated) United States Information Agency, publication to Moscow, November 1984, "Around the World in Total Silence", Joseph Allen, p. 13, ill. Longson, Tony "Computer Art", Arts and Architecture, Vol.3 #1, Sum.1984, p. 52, ill. Gilbert, Anne, "Under the Rainbow: Artists and their Spaces", New West, February 27, 1978, ill.

Reviews (select) Press Enterprise, The Arts, Hazel Simon, January 18, 1987 Los Angeles Times, "A Spiritual Abstract Exhibition", William.Wilson, November 23, 1986 Washington Post, Paul Richard, February 20, 1978 Zammitt referred to Elysium as a walk-in painting, a separate reality or virtual spirituality.

In the shadows of the fourth street bridge within the warehouse sector of Boyle Heights, an avant garde artist has created a model for what he hopes one day will be an environment of tranquility, inspiration and contemplation.

Artist Norman Zammitt recently finished his prototype vision of "Elysium", the mythical Greek resting place of virtuous people after death."