Stanczak - "Crosscurrents" Acrylic painting of many geometric shapes together to create a large body of work

Julian Stanczak • Ohio (1928-2017)

Crosscurrents • Acrylic on Canvas 52-1/4" x 52-1/4"

“Life is confusing.” Trust Julian Stanczak. He knows. Everything the polish-born artist had hoped for as a young boy was taken from him. Instead of growing up to become a great musician, he was ripped from home during World War II and put in a Siberian concentration camp. There he received merciless beatings and lost the use of his right hand. He escaped to Uganda where he lived in a grass hut and started drawing. The once right-handed musician taught himself to be a left-handed artist. Stanczak’s whole world had been turned upside down. “My mind is more in chaos than in clarity.”

With one good arm (and one brilliant mind), Stanczak set out to bring order to the chaos in his life. Following the War, Stanczak studied art in England and then immigrated to Cleveland, Ohio. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the Cleveland Institute of Art and later a Master of Fine Arts at Yale University.

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From pencil sketches, to watercolors, to woodblock prints, Stanczak’s early years were spent creating realistic art. But soon, he realized the subjects and landscapes he was painting were only serving as clutter for a brain in dire need of order.

“Nature hides its orderly geometry,” so Stanczak stripped down everything in his art to find the most basic forms in nature. Using just lines, shapes, and colors, Stanczak’s art created optical illusions with depth, movement, and light. In fact, Time Magazine coined the term Op Art to describe it. His art is so meticulously crafted it seems computer generated. Yet he does it all using his one remaining good hand.

Through art, a young concentration camp survivor brought clarity to a chaotic mind.

Canton Museum of Art Permanent Collection • Gift of Mary S. Myers, 2008.11

4 Ways to Sound Smart When Viewing at The Canton Museum of Art

1.
“He was an accomplished right-handed cellist who lost the use of his right arm in a concentration camp, so became a left-handed artist.”

2.
“He received his first formal art training while living in a grass hut in Uganda.”

3.
“Initially a realist, Stanczak now strips nature down to simple lines, shapes, and colors. It is deceptively orderly, yet deceptively complex.”

4.
“He creates the illusion of depth, movement, and vibrations in his paintings. Time magazine coined the term Op Art to describe it.”

Stanczak Timeline. Scroll over images to see timeline.

1928

Born in Borownica, Poland on November 5.

NOTE: Seldom does ARTe find as comprehensive a Timeline as is found at julianstanczak.net. In many ways, we couldn’t improve on it, so have borrowed heavily. With much thanks, consider this our footnote for the entire slide show.

1939

Deported to a Siberian Gulag, where hard labor, starvation and abuse caused the deterioration of his right, dominant arm.

1941

The family received amnesty from the labor camp and made their way on foot and by jumping on trains southward through the Middle East, Teheran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Persia and other countries.

1942-48

Relocated to a Polish refuge camp in the African country of Uganda. There they lived in a straw hut and Julian received his first art lessons from a fellow refugee while teaching himself to use his left hand.

1948-50

Again relocated with his family to the Chekendon Camp outside London, England. There he studied book illustration at the Borough Polytechnic Institute.

1950

At the age of 22 he was finally able to emigrate to the United States of America where the family settled in Cleveland, Ohio among its large population of European refugees.

1954-56

Julian received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Art.

1956

Received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University, studying with Josef Albers and Conrad Marca Relli.

1957

Julian took his first teaching job at The Art Academy of Cincinnati.

1963

Married the artist Barbara M. Meerpohl, a German immigrant. She became an accomplished sculptor. The couple eventually had two children, Danusia and Christopher.

1964

Won First Prize in Dayton Museum of Art exhibition titled: “Artists of Southern Ohio.” The show was seen by Martha Jackson who invited Julian to join her stable of artists at the famous Martha Jackson Gallery in New York. He moved to Cleveland, Ohio to begin a 31 year career as Professor of Painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

1965

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in NYC staged The Responsive Eye, an exhibit of a new international art movement named Optical Art or Op Art. The movements name was coined by Time Magazine after the title of Julian’s exhibition at the Martha Jackson Gallery. The movement exploded on the world art market with Julian as a major figure.

1970s

Julian staged 31 one-man shows across the country, including 8 exhibitions with the Martha Jackson Gallery in NYC. During this decade he won the Outstanding American Educator Award of Excellence in Painting from the Ohio Arts Council and Best of Show from the International Platform Association in Washington, D.C.

1990s

Julian experimented with the first use of several paintings joined together to form one large painting. The panels facilitated variations on a theme such as changing colors, moods or unfolding shapes.

2000s

The idea of panels took off with the largest work consisting of 60 panels forming one single constellation. He had a major public commission from the city of Cincinnati and the Fifth Third Bank exploring the exploration of three-dimensionality.

2017

Died at his home in Seven Hills, Ohio