Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

Anuskiewicz made a name for himself in the Museum of Modern Art’s 1965 survey of optical art, "The Responsive Eye," and became one of the movement’s premier colorists.
Although well-versed in the color theory of his teacher Josef Albers, as well as those of nineteenth-century color physicists, Anuskiewicz sought to move beyond a theoretical approach to create color schemes that gave the viewer a "particular feeling of enchantment." Using the square as his motif, he arranged intense complementary colors by varying size and widths to create color vibrations, the illusion of movement, and the optical phenomena of an afterimage or aura. Anuskiewicz’s paintings bridged the gap between the scientific-based Op Art and the commercial or drug-induced realms of Pop Art and psychedelica.