THE OPTICAL ART OF JULIAN STANCZAK COMES TO FORT WAYNE
The Fort Wayne Museum of Art is pleased to present Full Spectrum: Paintings, Drawings and Prints of Julian Stanczak; Wood and Stone Sculptures of Barbara Stanczak, a unique exhibition of the work of Julian Stanczak a pioneer of the Optical Art movement, and the work of his wife, sculptor of the natural world Barbara Stanczak. The exhibition is on view August 17-November 24, 2019.
Julian Stanczak is known by many as the pioneer of Optical Art, as he combines feats of geometric abstraction with amazing color performance, achieved by few others of the genre. And in this tremendous story of an artist is the story of another, his wife Barbara Stanczak, whose journey with sculpture travels to the far reaches of the natural world. This retrospective of Julian and Barbara Stanczak encompasses the life and work of two artists in visual conversation with one another.
Julian Stanczak (1928-2017) was a Polish-born American painter best known for his contribution to the Optical Art movement. His works are in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the and Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He has shown his work in over 40 solo exhibitions and dozens of group exhibitions, starting with the groundbreaking 1965 exhibition The Responsive Eye organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. “Color cannot be measured so easily. Its energies are diffused in memory. We know color through our reaction to it. It becomes an experience,” he once said.
Barbara Stanczak (b. 1941) is a German-born American artist based in Ohio.
Her work in stone and wood honor the wonders of the Earth. She has said that nature shows us a type of growth that is organic, internally programmed, irreversible—a linear progression in the development of structure and a miraculous unfolding. “As a sculptor I have to submerge myself into that time and organic evolution without abandoning my own layers of accumulated learning and experience. I have to become the stone, the tree.”
The exhibition will feature over 50 paintings and prints by Julian, some as large as 7 feet, and 28 sculptures by Barbara in a range of materials such as wood, alabaster, and glass. The exhibition will occupy all 4 main galleries of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, making it one of the largest and most comprehensive surveys at FWMoA in recent history. A catalogue with essays by Matthew L. Levy, Associate Professor of Art History at Penn State Behrend, and Charles A. Shepard III, FWMoA chief curator, will accompany the exhibition.
October 3: Curator’s Tour, 12:15pm – Chief Curator and CEO Charles Shepard will lead you on an engaging and lively gallery tour of this exhibition. Tours are free with museum admission.
October 4: Barbara Stanczak and Neil Rector in Conversation, 7pm – Join Barbara and Columbus, OH-based collector Neil Rector in conversation about the life and work of the Stanczaks. Appetizers and cash bar will be offered starting at 6:30pm. Tickets are $10 for members and $15 for non-members and will be available at fwmoa.org/rsvp or at the door the night of the event.
General admission to see this exhibition at the museum is free for FWMoA members, $8 adults, $6 students and seniors 65+, and $20 for families. General admission is free for everyone on Thursdays 5-8pm. Veterans, active military personnel, and their families receive free general admission. Discounts available for individuals with EBT cards. FWMoA gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6pm, Thursdays 10am-8pm, and Sundays 12-5pm.
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