Throughout the academic year, Kelvin Smith Library has featured seldom-seen prints by Optical Art pioneer Julian Stanczak. The last in the series of four exhibitions, “Pushing the Envelope: New Dimensions of Color,” will open with a reception on Thursday, April 10, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Kelvin Smith Library Art Gallery. The reception will feature remarks from the artist, as well as by American art professor Henry Adams. Those interesting in attending the reception should RSVP online.
The series at Kelvin Smith Library is a retrospective of Stanczak’s work, moving in chronological order of the art’s creation. By the 1980s, Stanczak had mastered a rich technical repertory of color sequences, color chords and surprising visual illusions. In the “Pushing the Envelope” exhibit, Stanczak’s art has come to full maturity, both in ever more complex and artful individual prints, and in groupings of prints that develop color harmonies in contrapuntal variations, like those of a composer interweaving voices and changing keys.
Stanczak’s work has been exhibited around the world and is represented in more than 85 museums and 100 public collections. Also a distinguished educator, Stanczak began his 38-year teaching career in 1957 at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and the University of Cincinnati. In 1964, he became a professor of painting at Cleveland Institute of Art, a position he held until his retirement in 1995.
“Pushing the Envelope” will be on display at the library through June 6. The exhibit is free and open to the public with valid photo ID during the library’s regular business hours. Learn more at library.case.edu/ksl/aboutus/