Designer: Merle Edelman (b. 1930)

Item: Set of six acrylic sculptures

Manufactured by: EG Design for Merle Edelman

Country of origin: Canada/United States

Year made: 1970s

Materials: Acrylic

Dimensions: 4 ¼” x 2 ¼” x 1 ¾”; 4” x 2 ¼” x 1 ¾”; 2 ¾” x 1 ½” x 1”; 3 ¾” x 2 ½” x 1”; 2 ½” x 2 ¼” x 2”

Condition: Very good to excellent

Description: Here is a very rare set of six Merle Edelman acrylic cube sculptures from the early 1970s.  From what we have been able to learn, we believe this is a complete set of one of each of the five sizes produced in this layered multi-colored work.  The few you can find available are almost always the largest size of which there are two in this set. Two of these retain their original paper labels as shown.  His more often found acrylic sculptures are triangular shaped clear acrylic works with black designs of faces within them.   

Not a lot of information exists about the artist and designer Merle Edelman, but his acrylic sculptures from the 1970s are very well known and collected.  The cubes here are often confused with the work of Vasa Velizar Mihich (born 1933) aka Vasa, and often incorrectly and improperly being sold as Vasa.  What information can be found indicates that Edelman was a native of Cleveland, Ohio and studied art at the Tyler School of Fine Art of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and then transferred to the Cleveland Institute of Art where he graduated in 1952.  This series of Edelman’s work competes well with Vasa’s small acrylic works of that period, as well as acrylic works by Dennis Byng and Norman Mercer also from that era.