Richard Joseph Anuszkiewicz (May 23, 1930 – May 19, 2020) was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor.

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.

He was one of the founders and foremost exponents of Op Art, a movement during the late 1960s and early 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

U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson and U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright inspect "Squaring the Circle", a bright red 1963 painting by Richard Anuszkiewicz, at the 1965 White House Arts Festival.

U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson and U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright inspect "Squaring the Circle", a bright red 1963 painting by Richard Anuszkiewicz, at the 1965 White House Arts Festival.

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.