Artist
Richard Anuszkiewicz
American, 1930–2020
Richard Anuszkiewicz was an American artist. 4 works are cataloged here, principally at Museum of Modern Art. Richard Anuszkiewicz was born in Erie.
Overview
Richard Joseph Anuszkiewicz (; May 23, 1930 – May 19, 2020) was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. The son of Polish immigrants, he developed a geometric style.
Life and work
Anuszkiewicz was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, the son of Victoria (Jankowski) and Adam Anuszkiewicz, who worked in a paper mill. His parents were Polish immigrants. He first studied art under Joseph Plavcan while still in high school, later describing him as his most significant influence. Anuszkiewicz trained at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, Ohio (1948–1953), and then with Josef Albers at the Yale University School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut (1953–1955), where he earned his Masters of Fine Arts. While at Yale, Anuszkiewicz was roommates with a fellow abstract painter of Polish descent and a student of Albers, Julian Stanczak. He was one of the leading figures in the Op Art movement during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Victor Vasarely in France and Bridget Riley in England were his primary international counterparts. In 1964, Life magazine called him "one of the new wizards of Op". While reflecting on a New York City gallery show of Anuszkiewicz's from 2000, New York Times art critic Holland Cotter described Anuszkiewicz's paintings: "The drama — and that feels like the right word — is in the subtle chemistry of complementary colors, which makes the geometry glow as if light were leaking out from behind it." Anuszkiewicz exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Florence Biennale and Documenta, and his works are in permanent collections internationally. He was elected into the National Academy of Design in 1992 as an Associate member, and became a full member in 1994.
Style
Anuszkiewicz was concerned with the optical changes that occur when different high-intensity colors are applied to the same geometric configurations. Most of his work comprises visual investigations of formal structural and color effects, many of them nested square forms similar to the work of his mentor Josef Albers. In his series, "Homage to the Square", Albers experimented with juxtapositions of color, and Anuszkiewicz developed these concepts further. Anuszkiewicz continued to produce works in the Op Art style over the subsequent decades of his career. In 1963, Anuszkiewicz summarized his approach to painting as: "My work is of an experimental nature and has centered on an investigation into the effects of complementary colors of full intensity when juxtaposed and the optical changes that occur as a result, and a study of the dynamic effect of the whole under changing conditions of light, and the effect of light on color."
Selected collections holding works
Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo Art Institute of Chicago Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas Boca Raton Museum of Art Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland Museum of Art Columbus Museum of Art Currier Museum of Art Denver Art Museum Detroit Institute of Arts Flint Institute of Arts Fogg Museum, Harvard University The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art Honolulu Museum of Art Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art, New York Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Guggenheim Museum, New York Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Whitney Museum of Art, New York Richard M. Ross Art Museum, Ohio
Grants and awards
1953: Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship 1963: Charles of the Ritz Oil Painting Award 1964: The Silvermine Guild Award for Oil Painting 1977: Cleveland Arts Prize 1980: Hassam Fund Purchase Award 1988: Hassam Fund Purchase Award 1994: New York State Art Teachers' Association Award 1995: Emil and Dines Carlson Award 1996: New Jersey Pride Award 1997: Richard Florsheim Fund Grant 2000: Lee Krasner Award 2005: Lorenzo dei Medici Career Award, awarded at the Florence Biennale
Exhibitions
Anuskiewicz exhibited in many public collections around the world, including such New York galleries as Sidney Janis, The Contemporaries, and the Andrew Crispo Gallery.
1955: Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio 1966: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio 1967: The Hopkins Center, Hanover, New Hampshire 1968: Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 1972: Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Florida 1976: La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, California 1977: Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio 1978: Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Florida 1978: Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, Pennsylvania 1979: Alex Rosenberg Gallery, New York City, New York 1979: Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts 1980: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York 1980: Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1984: Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York 1984: Canton Art Institute, Canton, Ohio 1986: Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida 2005: Florence Biennale, Fortezza da Basso, Firenze, Italy
Collections represented
Museum
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