Julian Stanczak
Julian Stanczak | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | March 25, 2017 | (aged 88)
Alma mater | Cleveland Institute of Art Yale University |
Occupation | Painter |
Movement | Op art, geometric abstraction |
Spouse | Barbara Stanczak |
Julian Stanczak (
Born in 1928 in
As the popularity of Op art diminished in the late 1970s, Stanczak remained active as a painter and continued to exhibit his work, but became progressively separated from mainstream contemporary art in the U.S. In addition to being a practicing artist, Stanczak served as a faculty member at the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1957 to 1964 and, later, as Professor of Painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art from 1964 to 1995. In 2013, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. Stanczak lived and worked in Seven Hills, Ohio with his wife, the sculptor Barbara Stanczak, until his death in 2017. His work is included in permanent collections of museums in North America and Europe.
Early life and work
Early life and education (1928-1950)
Julian Stanczak (
He then traveled to a refugee camp in
Immigration to the United States (1950)
The Stanczaks eventually
Albers, who had formerly served as a faculty member at the Bauhaus and taught classes in color theory, served as an important influence for Stanczak and his "work modeled the perceptual practices" of Stanczak.[6]: 65 According to the American scholar Joe Houston, the investigation of color became the primary interest of Stanczak and Anuszkiewicz while at Yale. In particular, Stanczak was inspired by the 1954 book by Rudolf Arnheim, a German Gestalt theorist with strong connections to the Bauhaus, titled Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, which the artist translated into Polish.[7] Writing in 1992, the Artforum critic Elizabeth Licata said that Stanczak's precise linear systems operate within the visual rigor and limits set out by Albers who, according to Stanczak, "taught by confrontation anxiety".[8] In 1955, Stanczak's paintings of "an abstracted linear pattern" were included in an annual exhibition of new art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where he was awarded an honorary mention.[9]: 78 He became a United States citizen in 1957 and taught at the Art Academy of Cincinnati for 7 years.[3]
Career in the U.S.
Op-art movement (1964-1970s)
The term
In 1966 he was named a "New Talent" by Art in America magazine.[13] In 1973, Stanczak designed a mural for a 12-story residential building in Cleveland called Carter Manor, which would subsequently become badly damaged due to the contractor's decision to use enamel paint.[14] The mural was eventually restored in 2018 by artists participating in that year's FRONT Triennial exhibition in Cleveland.[15] As the popularity of Op art began to diminish in the late 1970s, superseded by such movements as Minimalism and later Postminimalism, Stanczak's work became progressively separated from mainstream American art. He continued to exhibit frequently until the end of his life, primarily in the Midwest.[3] Some critics have noted that Stanczak's medium of acrylic paint and his visual vocabulary had remained largely unchanged since the 1960s, consisting primarily of parallel lines, straight or curved, various grids, and basic geometric shapes such as circles or squares.[10]
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Belated Echo, 1965, acrylic on canvas, 53 x 53 in.
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Chromatic Fold, Acra Yellow, 1970, acrylic on canvas
Later career (1980s-2017)
During the early 1990s, Stanczak work was said to have influenced a new generation of artists including Peter Halley and Philip Taaffe.[8] In addition to being an artist, Stanczak was also a teacher, having worked at the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1957 to 1964 and as Professor of Painting, at the Cleveland Institute of Art, 1964-1995. He was named "Outstanding American Educator" by the Educators of America in 1970.[3]
In 2007, Stanczak was interviewed by Brian Sherwin for Myartspace Blog. During the interview, Stanczak recalled his experiences with war and the loss of his right arm and how both influenced his art. Stanczak explained: "The transition from using my left hand as my right, main hand, was very difficult. My youthful experiences with the atrocities of the Second World War are with me, but I wanted to forget them and live a 'normal' life and adapt into society more fully. In the search for art, you have to separate what is emotional and what is logical. (...) I looked for anonymity of actions through non-referential, abstract art".[16] In 2008, Stanczak designed a 364-foot mural made of painted metal rods for the exterior of a corporate building in downtown Cincinnati.[14] In 2013, Stanczak was awarded an honorary doctorate from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.[13] For most of his life, he lived and worked in Seven Hills, Ohio with his wife, sculptor Barbara Stanczak. He died at home on March 25, 2017 at the age of 88 following a short illness.[3]
Select museum collections
Julian Stanczak's works are held in permanent collections of museums in North America, Central and South America, and Europe. These include:[17]
- Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
- Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada
- Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York
- Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
- Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas
- Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
- Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Museo Rufino Tamayo, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, Mexico
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
- Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York
- National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
- New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Bibliography
- Arnheim, Rudolf, Harry Rand and Robert Bertholf. Julian Stanczak: Decades of Light (University of Buffalo, Poetry and Rare Book Collection, 1990)
- McClelland, Elizabeth. Julian Stanczak, Retrospective: 1948-1998 (Butler Institute of American Art, 1998)
- Serigraphs and Drawings of Julian Stanczak 1970-1972 (exh. cat. by Gene Baro, Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1972)
- Julian Stanczak: Color = Form (exh. cat. by Jacqueline Shinners and Rudolf Arnheim, Dennos Museum Center, Northwestern Michigan College, 1993)
References
- ^ Greenberger, Alex (2017-03-28). "Julian Stanczak, Central Figure of Op Art Movement, Dies at 88". ARTnews. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
Stanczak was one of the leaders of the short-lived Op art movement in the 1960s.
- ^ Nazif, Perwana (2017-03-29). "Polish-American Artist Julian Stanczak Dead at 88". Artnet News. Retrieved 2024-04-17.
a leading member of the Op Art movement and influential professor of art
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
- ^ ISBN 978-83-7758-819-2.
- ^ ISSN 2330-5606.
- ISBN 978-1-943208-01-2.
- ISBN 978-1858943893.
- ^ a b Licata, Elizabeth (Summer 1992). "Julian Stanczak (Anderson Gallery)". Artforum. 30 (10): 113–114.
- ISSN 0009-8841.
- ^ a b Istomina, Tatiana (2014-12-18). "Julian Stanczak From Life". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
- ISSN 0004-3125.
- ^ Bedford, Christopher (December 2009). "Julian Stanczak. MOCA Cleveland". Artforum. 48 (4): 239–240.
- ^ a b Adams, Henry (2013-03-12). "With All Due Respect: Cleveland-based Op-Art pioneer Julian Stanczak should have an honorary doctorate". Collective Arts Network - CAN Journal. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
- ^ ISSN 0004-3214.
- ^ Barnett, David C. (2018-07-25). "A Long-Lost Mural Returns to Downtown Cleveland". Ideastream Public Media. Retrieved 2024-04-13.
- ^ "Art Space Talk: Julian Stanczak" Archived 2007-09-04 at the Wayback Machine, Myartspace, 23 July 2007. Retrieved 15 July 2008.
- ^ "Collections (Julian Stanczak)". The Stanczak Foundation. Retrieved 2024-04-15.