Julian Stanczak, globally renowned Op artist based in
Cleveland, has died at age 88
SEVEN HILLS, Ohio - Julian Stanczak, a native of
Poland who survived World War II as a child to become a globally renowned
exponent of Op Art and a
revered professor at the Cleveland
Institute of Art, died Saturday morning at his home here at age 88.
Barbara Stanczak, the artist's wife and a respected
abstract sculptor and former Cleveland Institute of Art professor, shared the
news of her husband's death in an email to more than 80 friends and
associates across the art world just after 9 p.m. Saturday.
"I want to let you know that Julian is in paradise
now," she wrote. "He has found peace after an exciting life filled
with tragedies as well as many blessings, success, hard work and glorious
visions which he communicated through his art."
Reached at home late Saturday, Barbara Stanczak said her
husband died under hospice care after having been treated for pneumonia and
other illnesses.
"Everybody knows he was a unique human being, not
only a talented artist, but as a person, unsurpassed," she said.
Despite suffering great pain in recent years from
injuries suffered as a child in a Soviet labor camp, Stanczak continued to turn
out astonishingly precise and meltingly beautiful geometric abstractions
that radiated serenity, calm and a sense of wonder about light, color and the
visual energy of linear patterns.
And, after decades in which his work and that of other Op
Artists was viewed with enormous disfavor, if not ridicule, Stanczak lived long
enough to see a complete turnaround in the art world's view of his art.
Over the past decade and a half, Stanczak's work was the
subject of more than 20 exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe and numerous
publications including a 320-page monograph written by Polish art historian
Marta Smolinska published in Polish and English in 2014.
Prices for Stanczak's work have also skyrocketed in
recent years, reaching as high as $300,000.
In 2012, Bloomberg-Artnet listed
Stanczak as No. 6 on its list of the 15 "hottest artists" in the
world, based on percentage increases in prices from the starting year of
2000.
During the past decade, Julian Stanczak's art has been
enthusiastically rediscovered by museums, galleries and collectors.
"I am numb,"
Stanczak said in a 2009 interview at his home and studio in Seven
Hills. "Once you get older, you look at it with a cat's smile. It's very
pleasant, but where have you been all this time when I needed you?"
Cleveland artist Julian Stanczak, who rocketed to fame as
a progenitor of Op Art in the 1960s, is enjoying renewed acclaim.
Stanczak was a diminutive man who lived an epic life. He
escaped from the Soviet labor camp in Perm, Siberia in 1942 at age 14 and
traveled through Teheran, Iran and India; before living out the war years in
British-controlled Uganda, where he nurtured dreams of becoming an artist.
Rise to greatness
Stanczak later studied art in London, England. He
emigrated to the United States in 1950 and earned a bachelor's degree in art at
the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1954. He then proceeded to Yale University,
where his professors included the famous former Bauhaus instructor Josef Albers.
After completing his master-of-fine-arts degree at Yale
in 1956, Stanczak took a teaching position in Cincinnati, where he lived until
he moved to Seven Hills in 1964, with his wife.
They turned a modest, mid-century home into a comfortable
modernist-style refuge filled with artworks and with furniture that Stanczak
built by hand. And they raised their children, Christopher and
Danusia and cared for Stanczak's aging parents, who moved into the
house across the back yard
In a large studio on the rear of the house, Stanczak
produced vibrant geometric abstractions with precise linear and geometric
patterns in scintillating hues and patterns.
Creating with one arm
Amazingly, he did it all with the use of only his left
hand and arm.
He
was a unique human being, not only a talented artist, but as a person,
unsurpassed.
After Soviet troops occupied his hometown of Borownica,
Poland, Stanczak was deported at age 11 with family members to the labor camp
in Siberia.
He was beaten so severely there that he lost the use of
his right arm - a terrible fate for a future artist who was right-handed.
"I still dream I am using my right arm,"
Stanczak said in a 2009 interview at his home and studio. "Then in my
dreams, I correct myself."
Stanczak made up for his handicap in numerous ways
including his construction of rotary cutting device made of gears, spools
and blades that allowed him to slice strips of masking tape he needed for his
abstractions in highly precise widths.
Stanczak's type of art was so precise that deviations
from perfection would have drawn the eye to any flaws.
Yet Stanczak achieved extreme precision both in his
taping and painting techniques and in his ability to mix colors in
highly subtle gradients of hue and light-dark value.
Early spotlight
In 1965, Stanczak participated with artists such as Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley and Richard Anuszkiewicz in "The Responsive Eye," the
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New
York that made Op Art
an instant sensation.
Stanczak later said Op Art "is nothing but scrutiny
of how we go about seeing -- how much is sight, how much is mental
interpretation."
After a surge of popularity in which Op Art patterns
appeared on everything from album covers to apparel, the movement suddenly fell
into eclipse as a victim of rapidly changing art world movements and styles.
Roller coaster reactions
The leading critic and art historian Barbara Rose wrote
at the time that, "Op Art goes Pop [Art] one better by being considerably
more mindless."
Barbara Stanczak said viewed such harsh attacks to be the
work of "throat-cutters."
Despite being considered quaintly irrelevant by critics
and curators for nearly three decades, Stanczak continued to pursue his vision.
"Having those 30 years of anonymity in Cleveland and
being away from New York made his work stronger," Barbara
Stanczak said in a 2009 interview.
Beloved teacher
Meanwhile, he became a highly respected instructor at the
Cleveland Institute of Art, where he taught from X to Y, and where his
students included future luminaries such as the landscape painter April Gornik,
and Dana Schutz, known for her bold, imaginary visions.
Barbara Stanczak's email announcing her husband's death was
addressed to Gornik, Grafton Nunes, president of the Cleveland Institute of
Art, and numerous collectors, art dealers and artists.
In addition to his wife, Stanczak is survived by his
brother, Mark Stanczak, and his daughter-in-law, Mary Stanczak, both of Seven
Hills; a son, Christopher Stanczak, of Los Angeles; a daughter,
Danusia Casteel, of Norton, Ohio; two grandchildren and a great grandson.
Arrangements are in care of Ferfolia Funeral Home in
Aurora. Donations may be made to the Julian Stanczak Scholarship Fund at the
Cleveland. Institute of
