Julian Stanczak and His Abstract Life

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At age 12, Julian was deported with his whole family from Poland, where he had been born in 1928, to a Siberian labor camp. His whole family was forced to work in atrocious weather conditions, which irreversibly affected Julian. Due to illness and hard work, his dominant right arm became numb. Two years later, in 1942, his family escaped the camp and wandered 2,500 miles south, down to Teheran. Julian temporarily joined the Polish troops led by Polish army general Władysław Anders in Iran, together with his father. To join the army, Julian lied that he was 17 and not 14, but he eventually deserted and travelled to India. In the end, he ended up in a refugee camp in Uganda, together with his mother and sister, where he learned how to paint and write with his left hand. Uganda impacted his artistic style immensely, he later admitted in an interview. He especially emphasized the incredible quality of light, the saturation of colors, and the diversity of clothing patterns worn by Ugandan women.

Towards a Better Life

Even though Julian’s first exhibition took place in Nairobi, his career took off after he had immigrated with his family to the UK where he began university studies. A year later, the family moved again, this time to Cleveland, Ohio, where Julian recommenced his studies at the Cleveland Institute of Arts. He then moved in 1954 to Yale to study under famous painter Josef Albers. He made an effort to leave his traumatic experiences behind in order to start a new fulfilling life.

Optical Paintings

Having completed the studies, Stanczak began experimenting with his art. He found inspiration by combining his memories of Ugandan colors with the rhythmical movements of the brush, reminding one of musical explorations. The title of his New York debut at the Martha Jackson Gallery in 1964, Julian Stanczak: Optical Paintings, was picked up by Donald Judd for the review he was writing for Arts magazine. Judd, then still quite unknown Minimalist sculptor, used the name ‘Op Art‘ to mock a little the new abstract trend and its possible marketing links with the Museum of Modern Art. All in all, the term stuck and Op Art became a new art craze in 1965. Despite critics’ derisive comments the exhibition was extremely popular with the audience.

Abstract Teaching

While working on his chromatic explorations, created through a systematic process of adding colors and unveiling new ones in layers through masking tape and done without any preliminary sketches, Stanczak complemented his abstract life with a teaching career. A citizen of the US since 1957, he started teaching at  the Art Academy of Cincinnati the same year. In 1964, he became a professor of painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he worked until 1995. In 1970 he won a title “Outstanding American Educator” granted by the Educators of America.

Even though Julian Stańczak is considered an icon and one of the founding fathers of Op Art, he is known to the very few. Despite the fact that his works have been exhibited for over 60 years and over 70 museums own his pieces, he has never gained vast public recognition. Hence, next time you’re in Cleveland Institute of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Miami University Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, or Museum of Modern Art, pay his art a visit.

Below you can see a short documentary and interview with Julian Stanczak: