Julian Stanczak - Sway in warm light - image-1

Lot 214 Dα

Julian Stanczak - Sway in warm light

Auction 1162 - overview Cologne
08.12.2020, 18:00 - Evening Sale - Modern and Contemporary Art
Estimate: 60.000 € - 80.000 €
Result: 75.000 € (incl. premium)

Julian Stanczak

Sway in warm light
1998

3- part work: each acrylic on canvas. Each 122 x 62 cm. Overall dimensions 122 x 186 cm. Framed together. Signed and dated 'Stanczak 98' verso on canvas. Signed, dated and titled 'JULIAN STANCZAK "SWAY IN WARM LIGHT" 1998' verso on stretcher. - Minor traces of age.

Born in Poland in 1928, Julian Stanczak fled to Uganda as a teenager following deportation. In Africa, he experienced a diversity of colour and intensity of light that made a great impression on him. These laid the foundation of his artistic development and his life-long preoccupation with colour. In 1950, Stanczak emigrated to the USA; at Yale his teacher was Josef Albers. In 1950 ­- inspired by Albers - he applied himself to an abstract visual language which evoked visual interaction by means of densely arranged variegated shapes. Stanczak thus became one of first representatives of Op Art, just as his fellow student Richard Anuszkiewicz. Stanczak followed this path consistently in subsequent years, experimenting with grid patterns of stripes, squares and waves in vibrant colours. In contrast to other representatives of Op Art, Stanczak was not primarily interested in flamboyant effects or in optically challenging the viewer, but in the visualisation of fleeting, subtle impressions. “Er sucht nach einer universalen Formgebung für die unscheinbarsten, aber lebenswichtigen Kostbarkeiten des Alltags, die uns mit dem „Jetzt“ verbinden, mit dem lebendigen Augenblick, der sich nicht festhalten lässt […] eine Veränderung des Lichts, eine Bewegung, verursacht von unbeachteten kleinen Geschehen, die man nur aus dem Augenwinkel miterlebt.“ (Elizabeth McClelland, in: (Elizabeth McClelland: exhib.cat. Julian Stanczak, A Retrospective, Youngstown/Ohio i.a. 1998, p.155)

Provenance

Selker Fine Art, Rancho Santa Fe/California; private collection, Poland