Dimensions: 61 x 61 cm
signed, dated and described on the reverse: 'EDWIN MIECZKOWSKI | "MATE ENDS" | 24 x 24 INCHES | 1965'.
On the reverse a sticker from D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc.
Origin
D. Wigmore Fine Art, Inc., New York
private collection, Poland
Exhibited
"Black/White and Gray Paintings 24" Square," Anonima Gallery, New York, 1966
"Anonima Group," Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, February 1966
"Anonima Group. Black/White and Gray Paintings", Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, July 1966
Literature
Anonima Group. Black, white and gray paintings, cat. exhibition, Warsaw 1966, item 3, nlb (il.).
Work in the archives of the Anonima Group, accessed online: https://www.anonimagroup.org/works/1965 [13.11.2023].
Biography
The artist is counted among the creators of op-art, although he himself never liked the term. His works explored the visual and psychological impact of colors, shapes and patterns.
He graduated in 1957 from the Cleveland Institute of Art, BFA, and in 1959 from Carnegie Tech. MFA. He taught at the Faculty Cleveland Institute of Art since 1959 and at Western Reserve University since 1963.
In 1960 Mieczkowski, together with Ernst Benkert and Francis Hewitt, founded the Anonima Group of artists (1960-71). They opposed extreme consumerism and the adaptation of artists and their art to the needs of the viewer. The goal of their work was the precise investigation of scientific phenomena and the psychology of optical perception. Painting activity was also accompanied by writing activity, in the form of proposals, projects and manifestos.
In 1966, the works of Anonima Group artists were exhibited at Warsaw's Foksal Gallery in the exhibition "Black, White and Gray Paintings." The work on display is from this exhibition. Presenting such radical exhibitions in communist Poland, the Foksal Gallery was considered one of the most important venues for avant-garde art in the world.
