Julian Stanczak (born in Borownica, Poland on November 5 1928) is an Polish-American painter and printmaker.

Contents

1 Education 2 Works 3 Style 4 Bibliography

Education

Julian Stanczak received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland Ohio in 1954, and trained under Josef Albers and Conrad Marca-Relli at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture, New Haven Connecticut, where he received his Master of Fine Arts in 1956.

Works

The Op Art movement was named for Stanczak’s first exhibition in New York. Held at the Martha Jackson Gallery in 1964, the exhibition was titled “Julian Stanczak – Optical Paintings.” His work was also included in the Museum of Modern Art’s 1965 exhibition “The Responsive Eye.” In 1966 Stanczak was named a “New Talent” by Art in America magazine. In the early 1960s he began to make the surface plane of the painting vibrate through his use of wavy lines and contrasting colors in works such as Provocative Current (1965; artist’s priv. col., see McClelland fig. 19). These paintings gave way to more complex compositions constructed with geometric rigidity yet softened with varying degrees of color transparency such as Netted Green (1972; priv. col.). In addition to being an artist, Stanczak was also a teacher, having worked at the Art Academy of Cincinnati from 1957-64 and as Professor of Painting, Cleveland Institute of Art, 1964-1995. He was named “Outstanding American Educator” by the Educators of America in 1970.

Style

Stanczak uses repeating forms to create compositions that are manifestations of his visual experiences. Stanczak’s work is an art of experience, and is based upon structures of color. His compositions are eye-catching, playful, and aware of the viewer’s presence. In the 1980s and 1990s Stanczak retained his geometric structure and created compositions with bright or muted colors, often creating pieces in a series such as Soft Continuum (1981; Johnson and Johnson Co. CT, see McClelland pl. 50). More recently, Stanczak has been creating large-scale series’ comprised of square panels on which he examines variations of hue and chroma in illusionistic color modulations, an example of which is Windows to the Past (2000; 50 panels, artist’s priv. col.).

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)