Edge of All Activity

Finely painted orange lines emanate from a red diamond outlined by the same orange. As these crisp diagonal lines extend across the surface of the painting, they appear to pulsate and merge. Richard Anuszkiewicz created such optical effects by juxtaposing complementary colors of blue and orange. In the early 1950s Anuszkiewicz studied at Yale University with artist and educator Josef Albers, whose painting can be seen nearby. The following decade Anuszkiewicz became a leader of Op Art, a 1960s movement committed to optical and retinal effe cts. In fact, Anuszkiewicz exhibited at the Saint Louis Art Museum in 1965 in the traveling Op Art exhibition, “The Responsive Eye,” that originated at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.