Viewing Stanczak

Julian Stanczak. Folding Orange. 2007. Cleveland Artists Foundation.

On Friday, September 2nd, Cleveland artist Julian Stanczak will have an opening reception for Julian Stanczak: Elusive Transparencies at the  David Richard Contemporary gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This exhibition appears to cull together works throughout Stanczak’s career of painting perceptual abstractions.

While the show is a bit distant for the local viewer, there is a published catalog available that examines the work with full color illustrations. Additionally, those that are interested in seeing his work but lack the ability to travel don’t have to fret too much. Stanczak’s work can be seen in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s CLE OP: Cleveland Op Pioneers exhibit that runs through February 26, 2012 and in The Horseman Collection and Recent Acquisitions exhibit at Tregoning & Company which runs through August, 2011.

Stanczak and his family were forced to a labor camp during World War II in 1932. Ten years later they received a partial amnesty and escaped to Teheran. There, Stanczak pretended to be sixteen in order to join the army. Following his previous injuries in the camp, his health continued to decline resulting his losing function of his right arm and forcing him to learn how to use his left hand. He then deserted to find his family and traveled to British Uganda. There he studied under Henryk Frudist who recommended Stanczak get formal training. The family emigrated to England where Stanczak saw his first art book and work in galleries. Overwhelmed by the sensations of civilization at the age of 21, he longed to be an artist and sought training at the Borough Polytech Institute. Two years later, they disembarked to the United States where they settled in Cleveland, Ohio where he enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

At the institute Stanczak met Richard Anuszkiewicz and after graduating Anuszkiewicz urged Stanczak to join him at Yale in 1954. The two roomed together at Yale and studied color under Josef Albers. They also both became influenced by Gestalt psychology, in particular the writings of Rudolph Arnheim which fueled their interests in visual phenomena. While the two artists remained in contact, both worked independently and went off on their own paths. Stanczak returned to Ohio after finishing the program to teach in Cincinnati and then at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Julian Stanczak. Filtered Yellow. 1968. Cleveland Museum of Art.

Stanczak began finding inspiration in abstraction in nature and embedded concepts of bending grasses and rippling rivers into his geometric abstractions. His work gained the attention of Martha Jackson in New York who invited him to exhibit at her gallery in September of 1964. The exhibit titled Julian Stanczak: Optical Paintings led Donald Judd to write a harsh review for Arts Magazine where he truncated the title to create a negative connotation that the work was just “op art.” This first appearance of the term paired with the following 1964 Time Magazine article “Op Art: Pictures that Attack the Eye” solidified the title of the genre in popular culture.

Julian Stanczak. Soft Intervention #2. 1985. Tregoning & Company.

In his work, Stanczak reflects ideas derived from life, grasping tangible concepts of things that are known. Simple shapes are used to convey color and light, changing emphasis by fusing the two but always stressing one over the other. As the popularity of Op Art subsided, Stanczak steadfastly pursued perceptual abstraction while residing in the Cleveland area. His work continues to explore perceptual boundaries through his “constellation paintings” that consist of numerous 16” x 16” panels that fold line and color into one another. The sharp crispness of form and visual vibrations give powerful first hand experiences to the viewer with new discoveries with extended durations of observation.

Sources
Joe Houton, Op Out of Ohio (D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc., New York, 2010).
Joe Houston, Optic Nerve: Perceptual Art of the 1960s (Merrel, New York, 2007.
Joe Houston, Ursula Korneitchouk, and Francis Taft, Parallel Paths – Singular Quest: Barbara and Julian Stanczak (Cleveland Artists Foundation, Cleveland, 2008).
Carolyn Rabson, ed., Harmonic Forms on the Edge: Geometric Abstraction in Cleveland (Cleveland Artists Foundation, Cleveland, 2001).