Richard Anuszkiewicz
“I’m interested,” Richard Anuszkiewicz (1930–2020) once said, “in making something romantic out of a very, very mechanistic geometry.” Anuszkiewicz sought to achieve this romance through works juxtaposing vibrant colors in geometric configurations. The perceptual effects he created helped define the American Op art movement.
Anuszkiewicz studied color theory at Yale under Josef Albers and was greatly influenced by Albers’s approach. “The image in my work has always been determined by what I wanted the color to do,” Anuszkiewicz explained in a 1974 catalogue. “Color function becomes my subject matter, and its performance is my painting.”
He departed from his mentor, however, in the pulsating, illusory qualities he gave his work. One of his most famous paintings, Deep Magenta Square (1978), although similar in composition to Albers’s “Homage to the Square” series, is distinctly Op art in the way the striations surrounding the central square seem to vibrate and jump off the canvas.
Anuszkiewicz spent his entire career exploring optical effects through the manipulation of line and color, producing spectacular and timeless pieces of art. “Working with basic ideas will always be exciting,” he said in 1977. “And if a color or form is visually exciting in any profound sense, it will be that way in 10 or 20 years from now.”
Browse a variety of paintings and prints by Richard Anuszkiewicz at 1stDibs.
1970s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Metal
1970s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Enamel
1970s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paper
1960s Unknown Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
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1970s Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paper
Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Richard Anuszkiewicz
Stainless Steel
1970s European Mid-Century Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paper
1970s Italian Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paper
2010s Portuguese Modern Richard Anuszkiewicz
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20th Century European Art Deco Richard Anuszkiewicz
Crystal
2010s English Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paper
1980s American Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paper
1950s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paper
1970s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Glass, Wood, Paper
20th Century American Modern Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paint
1960s Mid-Century Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paper
1970s German Mid-Century Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
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1970s German Mid-Century Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paper
1970s German Mid-Century Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
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1970s American Mid-Century Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Enamel
1970s American Minimalist Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
1970s North American Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paper
1960s American Post-Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paint, Paper
1960s American Modern Vintage Richard Anuszkiewicz
Paper