Richard Anuszkiewicz (1930, Erie, Pennsylvania - 2020, Englewood), Triangulated Orange, 1977

acrylic, stencil, plate, 213 x 121.5 cm, signed p.d.: 'ANUSZKIEWICZ 32/56 1977' on the back stamp with author's monogram and stamp: '©RICHARD ANUSZKIEWICZ - 1977 with number 23'.



American painter and printmaker of Polish descent, one of the precursors of op-art. From 1948 to 1953 he studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Ohio. He graduated from Yale University's Department of Art and Architecture (together with Josef Albers), where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree. The hallmark of Richard Anuszkiewicz's art from the beginning of his career was the line - this is evidenced by a student paper he wrote with Josef Albers, entitled "Creation of space through line drawing." By varying the thickness of vertical lines of one color, located on a contrasting, almost monochromatic background, Anuszkiewicz led to spatial radiation of color. The artist mostly used basic geometric figures in his compositions, creating the illusion of movement of abstract images. The culmination of the first period of Anuszkiewicz's work and confirmation of his position in the New York art world was his participation, alongside Albers, among others. Frank Stella or Henryk Berlewie, in the famous exhibition "The Responsive Eye" at MoMA in 1965. This exhibition, which in the eyes of critics and art historians constituted op-art, opened the door for its representatives to the most influential American galleries. Anuszkiewicz himself established a partnership with the Sidney Janis Gallery, with which such prominent figures as Albers, Gorky, de Koonig, Kline, Motherwell, Pollock and Rothko were associated. The exhibition traveled around the United States for the next two years and established the artist in the canon of the most important American artists of the period. Anuszkiewicz's works are in the most important collections of contemporary art, including those of New York's MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of American Art - the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.