Julian Stanczak: Early Masterworks
A solo exhibition of rare early paintings by Julian Stanczak dating from 1964 - 1983. This is Julian Stanczak's fifth solo exhibition with Diane Rosenstein Gallery and showcases masterworks of color and geometric abstraction.
The selection of paintings on view include ‘circles,’ ‘cut-outs,’ and 'transparencies' – subtle and overlapping motifs that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a decisive decade in which Stanczak shifted from his early ‘Op Art’ paintings to a geometric abstraction. The craftmanship of Stanczak’s paintings conceals the effort, just as “nature conceals its order,” he recalled in a 2012 interview with the critic Dave Hickey. The poetic eloquence of his meticulous compositions also reveals an affinity with classical music and conjures the simple complexity of Philip Glass, whose intricate music also relies on the transformative repetition of rhythms.
Julian Stanczak (POL/USA, 1928 - 2017) was a painter, printmaker, and educator who emigrated from Europe to Cleveland, Ohio in 1950. He took his BFA at the Cleveland Institute of Art; and his MFA at Yale in 1956, where he studied with Josef Albers and Conrad Marca-Relli. Recognized as an early proponent of 'Op Art' painting, Stanczak exhibited with Martha Jackson Gallery in NYC from 1964 - 1979.
In February, 2025, Stanczak's geometric paintings are included in Kandinsky's Universe: Geometric Abstraction in the 20th Century, at Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Poland.
Since 1948 to the present day, Julian Stanczak's paintings and prints have been consistently exhibited in museums, institutions, biennials, and galleries throughout the world. Notable historic group shows include The Responsive Eye, MOMA (1965); Site and Insight: An Assemblage of Artists (Curated by Agnes Gund), MOMA/ P.S. 1 (2003), Ghosts in the Machine, New Museum, (2012), and Geometric Obsession: The American School 1965-2015, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Buenos Aires (MACBA), Argentina (2016).
Major solo exhibitions include Julian Stanczak: 50 Year Retrospective, Cleveland Institute of Art, Ohio, (2001) and Line Color Illusion: 40 Years of Collecting, Julian Stanczak, Akron Art Museum, Ohio, (2013).
His work is included in the permanent collection of more than 80 institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery, Washington, DC; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.