Jules Olitski painted on Plexiglas almost exclusively between 1986 and 1987—irregularly shaped Plexiglas, colored Plexiglas, mirrored Plexiglas. The material became, Olitski said, “an obsession.”

In his oral history with Avis Berman, Olitski recounted the unlikely circumstances that led to his interest in that material. A houseguest had painted, dreadfully, atop the glass surface of the artist’s outdoor patio table. Olitski then casually painted over it, and covered it with clear Plexiglas. “But once I did that,” Olitski recounted, “I thought, well, if I painted on the other side of the Plexiglas, the downside, that would work, too. So I did some drawing, with color, on the other side of the Plexiglas. I remember #DarbyBannard came to visit and we were going to eat on that table. And Darby said, ‘You can’t eat on this table, it’s a painting!’

“[That] began to interest me— what could be down with Plexiglas. I said to [my wife] Kristina, ‘Find out if there’s Plexiglas made with colors,’ and sure enough, they come in very vivid colors—purples and greens. I said ‘Is there a mirror-colored Plexiglas?’ Yes indeed! So I began painting that, and that took over my life for a time. Then I said, ‘Let’s cut them, put them together in sections.’ It took over. It became an obsession, the mirrored Plexiglas. And those colors by themselves are outrageous. Outrageous! I wondered who would use such colors. I thought maybe a whorehouse down South.

“It got to be very exciting. I did a lot of work on Plexiglas. But the origin on those paintings was that table, that unfortunate table, which we still eat on, now, with its Plexiglas cover. It makes for a very strange story, and is much more elaborate than most things that have happened in my art, as far as origins.”