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Julian Stanczak
Twist & the Rain Mid-Century OpArt Geometric Painting by Cleveland School artist

1975

About the Item

Julian Stanczak (American, 1928-2017) Twist and the Rain, 1975 acrylic on canvas signed verso 30 x 24 inches Julian Stanczak (American, b. November 5, 1928) was an American painter and printmaker. He was born in Borownica, Poland. When World War II broke out, he was sent to a concentration camp in Perm, Siberia. Stanczak had been right-handed before he lost the use of his right arm for good at the camp. In 1942, after successfully escaping from the camp, Stanczak joined the Polish army-in-exile in Persia but soon deserted from it. After that, the artist spent his time in a Polish refugee camp in Uganda, Africa. This was where Stanczak learned to write and paint with his left hand, and where he took his first private art lessons. He then went to Borough Polytechnic Institute in London before immigrating to the United States in 1950. Four years after his immigration, Stanczak received his BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art. In 1956, Stanczak became a United States citizen. It was also in 1956 that he received his MFA from Yale University under the training of Josef Albers (German-born American, 1888–1976) and Conrad Marca Relli (American, 1913–2000). Stanczak's first major solo exhibition took place at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York. Julian Stanczak: Optical Paintings was named after the Op Art movement. His work was also exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art's 1965 exhibition The Responsive Eye . In the early 1960s, Stanczak took advantage of the use of wavy lines and contrasting colors to make the surface plane of his works more vibrant. The work Provocative Current(1965) is a notable example of this unique style. This style of painting also paved the way for more complex artworks constructed with the rigidity of different geometrical shapes; however, it maintained the softness with many levels of color transparency. Netted Green (1972) is a famous work representing this style. Stanczak uses the same form again and again to produce compositions that reflect his visual experiences. His works are mainly based on the structures of color. In the 1980s and 1990s, Stanczak kept the geometric formation in mind, and produced bright-colored or muted-colored paintings often as pieces in a series such as Soft Continuum(1981). In 1970, Stanczak was recognized as "Outstanding American Educator" by the Educators of America. He lived and worked in Seven Hills, OH, with his wife, the sculptor Barbara M. Meerpohl before his death on March 29, 2017.
  • Creator:
    Julian Stanczak (1928, American)
  • Creation Year:
    1975
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 30 in (76.2 cm)Width: 24 in (60.96 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Beachwood, OH
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1768214424332
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Luckily, Clara used paper doilies as decoration for the apartment and Richard would contentedly paint and then cut up doilies, gluing the pieces together to create collages. At eight-years-old, he discovered the Albright-Knox Museum (then known as the Albright Art Gallery) and spent several hours a week there studying the paintings. He was particularly fond of Charles Burchfield‘s landscapes, enamored with their ‘messiness’ and thinking that they somehow captured more ‘feeling’ than works he was previously familiar with. For his tenth Christmas, he asked for and received a ‘how-to’ paint book by Elliot O’Hare. Through this self-teaching, he assembled the portfolio needed for acceptance to Buffalo Technical High School where he studied Advertising Arts. In his Junior year, he was encouraged to enter a watercolor painting, “Two Barns,” in the national 1944-45 Ingersoll Art Award Contest and was one of twelve grand prize winners – each one winning one hundred dollars. 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They quickly became known as ‘the couple’ on campus, and a year later, with Richard being drafted for the Korean war, they were quickly married by a Justice of the Peace, celebrating after with family at Avis’s Cleveland home. As a gift, faculty member John Paul Miller designed and made the simple gold wedding ring Avis wore for their 65 years of marriage. During those 65 years neither wavered in their mutual love, nor in the respect they shared for one another’s art. The couple lived in a converted chicken coop in Missouri while Richard was in boot camp. At the camp, he would volunteer for any job offered and one of those jobs ended up being painting road signs. His commander noticed how quickly and neatly he worked and gave him more painting work to do - eventually recommending him for a position painting murals for Army offices in Panama. Until her dying day, Avis remained angry that “The army got to keep those fabulous murals and they probably didn’t even know how wonderful they were.” In Panama, their first son, Mark, was born. After Richard’s discharge in 1953, they moved back to the Cleveland area and used the GI bill to attend Kent State gaining his BA in education. The small family then moved briefly to Buffalo, where Richard taught at the Albright Art School and the University of Buffalo – and their second son, Peter, was born. Richard had exhibited work in the Cleveland May Show and the Butler Art Museum during his art school years, and during the years in Buffalo, his work was exhibited at the gallery he had so loved as a child, the Albright Art Gallery. In 1956, the family moved back to the Cleveland area and Richard began teaching art at Lincoln West High School during the day while working toward his MA in art at Kent State in the evenings. Avis and Richard, with the help of an architect, designed their first home - a saltbox style house in Hudson, Ohio, and in 1958, their third son, Max (after Max Beckmann) was born. Richard enjoyed the consistency of teaching high school as well as the time it gave him to paint on the weekends and during the summer months. In 1961, he received his MA and his daughter, Claire, was born. With a fourth child, the house was much too small, and Avis and Richard began designing their second home. An admirer of MCM architecture, Richard’s favorite example of the style was the Farnsworth house – he often spoke of how the concepts behind this architectural style, particularly that of Mies van der Rohe, influenced his painting. Andres described himself as a 1950’s...
    Category

    1940s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

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