Richard Anuszkiewicz Biography and Artwork

born Erie, PN (USA) 1930

A student of Josef Albers, he shares Albers' fascination with shapes and their relationships to color. Considered a major force in the op art movement, Anuszkiewicz is concerned with the optical changes that occur when different high-intensity colors are applied to the same geometric configurations.

Each of his prints has its own rhythm and, therefore, its own energy as part of a lyrical composition. He has won many awards and has been a frequent exhibitor in museums throughout the world. His work is included in the collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Fogg Museum of Harvard University in Cambridge, and the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Born in 1930 in Erie, Pennsylvania, Richard Anuszkiewicz grew to love painting at a very early age. He developed his education at various colleges including a B.F.A. from the Cleveland Institute of Art, a M.F.A from Yale University, studying under the highly influential color theorist Josef Albers, and finally a Bachelor of Science degree from Kent State University in Ohio. In 1957 he moved to New York City where he soon received critical success in various one-man exhibitions as well as acquisitions by the Museum of Modern Art and inclusion in the Whitney Museum of American Art Annual Exhibition in 1963.

By 1965 Anuszkiewicz had firmly established himself as the Optical art movement leader by his inclusion in a historically important exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, The Responsive Eye.

Op art refers to the idea of "optical illusion" or of creating the illusion of movement. "Op art is direct and requires little previous knowledge of art. Children, as Anuszkiewicz has noted, delight in it. Other viewers are aware of formal structure, relationships, and complexities but are just as delighted. This art appeals on as many levels as there are levels of awareness and experience."

Working diligently from his Englewood, New Jersey studio, Richard Anuszkiewicz has "expanded his art so that it no longer fits any recognized category. Because of the mathematical precision of his working methods and formats and his long-standing preoccupation with the psychology and physiology of visual perception, Anuszkiewicz has been labeled a 'scientific' painter... However, critics have discovered the highly individual cadence of music and poetry and hints of the seasons and atmosphere, of sunrise, twilight, and sunset." "Color is at once the most striking aspect of Richard Anuszkiewicz's art and the most profound, often forming the basis for his compositions. 'Color function becomes my subject matter,' he has said, 'and its performance is my painting.' A major contemporary artist, Anuszkiewicz has long been noted for the cool geometry of his compositions, his impeccable technique, and, above all, the luminous evocative shimmer of his colors."

Museums Collections

• Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
• Guggenheim Museum, New York City, NY
• Birmingham Museum, Birmingham, AL
• Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
• Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
• Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
• Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany
• National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea
• Lockhaven Art Center, Orlando, FL
• Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC
• Denver Museum of Art, Denver, CO
• Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY

Select Artwork

• Sun-Keyed
• Grey Tinted Rainbow
• Manhattan
• Rose Red
• Midnight Suite (Red over Gray)
• Summer Suite (Red with Gold II)
• Untitled (Orange and Blue
• Property of Things Seen as Red - 1964
• Inward Eye - 1970
• Translumina with Deep Blue - 1987

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