Born in 1930 in Pennsylvania, America, Richard Anuszkiewicz studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, Ohio and with Josef Albers at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture in New Haven, Connecticut. He graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts. He is renowned as one of the founders of the Op Art movement, although he doesn’t identify himself with belonging to any particular artist movement. Other prominent artists of the same movement include Victor Vasarely in France and Bridget Riley in England.
He works in sculpture, paint and printmaking and focuses on geometric forms with high intensity colours, drawing on inspiration from Josef Albers, himself a geometric artist. He has worked in several types of media, from aluminum to luminous acrylic.
In a statement by the artist at the Americans 1963 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Anuszkiewicz describes his works as follows: “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.”
His work is hung globally, including in New York’s four major galleries: the Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of Art. He has also featured in the Venice Biennale and the Florence Biennale.
