The 1960s saw many significant events including the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, the rise of British pop/rock music, and the first man going to space in 1961. Op art emerged as an abstract art movement focused on optical illusions and interactions between color. Pioneering op artists included Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, and Julian Stanczak. The 1965 Responsive Eye exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York brought attention to op art and its perceptual aspects. Though critics disliked op art, the public embraced it and it began being used in advertisements. Julian Stanczak's art was influenced by his experiences as a refugee from Poland and losing his right arm at a young age.

1. The 1960s

2. Events
•
•
•
•
Assassination of President Kennedy (1963)
British pop/rock music
First man in space(1961)
Woodstock(1969)

3. Op art
• Victor Vasarely began this movement with his
1938 painting ‘zebra’
• Abstract and Expressionist movements helped
form op art due deconstructing subject matters.
• Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely, Marina Apollonio,
Richard Anuskiewitz and Julian Stanczak were the
first Opital artists.
• In 1964 ‘Time magazine’ gave it the name‘op art’.
After reviewing the responsive eye exhibition.

4. ZEBRA
ZEBRA
‘ZEBRA’

5. THE RESPONSIVE
• In 1965 William. C. Seitz held an
exhibition at the museum of modern art
in New york city
• It focused on perceptual aspects of art
which result of illusion of movement and
the interaction of colour relationships.

6. The critics hated it.

7. The public loved it.

8. • After the Responsive eye
exhibition the public was
fascinated with optical art.
• Advertisements began to use it.
They took inspiration Riley’s
and
Vasarely’s
compositiona
l styles.
Riley tried to
sue one
fashion industry for printing her
work on dresses. 

9. Julian Stanczak
• Born in Poland in 1928.
• In 1940 he was taken to a
concentration camp in Siberia.
• There he lost the use of his right
arm (which he drawn with.) He was only 10.
• AT JUST 13 HE ESCAPED. He made it to Persia and joined a
resistance army. Then to a refugee camp in Uganda.
• At 21 he made it to America with an idea in his head of the
‘American dream’. There he made it to a shelter and was fed.
The American dream was to him. ‘The feeling of being full’
• In the 50s he attended Yale.
• But was his art influenced by his personal experience…..?

10. NO!
• “Everybody was trying to push me to paint
from my experience. Why do you drown in the
misery of your problems? Who cares if you
suffer? Everyone suffers!”
• HOWEVER. The lost of his arm caused him to
be careful with geometry. Any precision
requires tape to create guides before paint
was applied.

11. Obsession (1960’s)

12. Vetical succession (1990’s)

13. Structural (1960’s)

14. QUOTES
“I was trying to understand how I see- how
we see altogether.”
“Any line creates energy”
“I’m not painting for myself. I’m painting
for curiosity.”
“I didn’t know I was making art.”

15. School of London
• The term ‘School of London’ was first coined
by R.B. Kitaj in 1976 in his cataloge
introduction to the exhibition ‘the human clay

16. Francis Bacon
• Bacon