Julian Stanczak (1928-2017), WITHOUT TITLE, 1969

oil/board, 60.5 x 61 cm
signed and dated on the back: J. Stanczak 1969
on the back a paper sticker of Galerie Denise Rene Hans Mayer in Düsseldorf, in circles "8" and "16"

"Behind op art, as a universally understood international style, there is also the utopia of making humanity globally happy through pure form. Not surprisingly, this way of painting suits Stanczak, who strives for art that would allow him to escape his own traumatic biography and bring solace" (M. Smolinskaya, Julian Stanczak. Op art and the dynamics of perception, Warsaw 2014, p. 54). The artist was born in 1928 in Brodnica. In 1940 he was deported with his entire family to Siberia. After escaping from the Soviet Union, they got to a refugee camp in Uganda. In 1949 they emigrated to the United Kingdom, where Julian began studying at London Polytechnic. The following year the artist moved to the United States. He continued his art studies at the Cleveland Art Institute and then at Yale University. He settled permanently in America and achieved great artistic success there. The term optical art derives from the artist's first exhibition in 1964 at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York, entitled "Optical Paintings." He has had many exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world (including: Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum in New York, National Gallery in Washington, D.C., Victoria and Albert Museum in London).