Julian Stanczak (Polish: Stańczak [ˈstaɲt͡ʂak]; November 5, 1928 – March 25, 2017) was a Polish-born American painter and printmaker who is considered a central figure of the Op art movement in the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s.

[1][2] Described as an artist whose work "evinced a tremendous geometric inventiveness", Stanczak is primarily known for his large-scale polychromatic abstract compositions made using acrylic paint on canvas in which he explored the perceptual dimensions of color.

[3] Born in 1928 in Borownica, Poland, Stanczak survived a Siberian labor camp during World War II where he lost the use of his right arm.

from Yale University, where he studied with Josef Albers and Conrad Marca-Relli, and was roommates with fellow abstract painter Richard Anuszkiewicz.

Stanczak achieved broader commercial recognition after being featured in the landmark 1965 exhibition The Responsive Eye created by curator William C. Seitz at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

[3] In 1940, at the beginning of World War II, Stanczak and his family were forced into a Soviet labor camp in Perm, Siberia, where his right arm is seriously injured; he had been right-handed.

[4] Aged sixteen, Stanczak decided to join the Polish Armed Forces in the West to receive food rations and medical help, becoming separated from his parents, sister, and brother.

Stanczak would later state that the time in Uganda had an important visual and artistic influence on his work; in particular, he found inspiration in geometric patterns of local textiles used by Ugandan women to make clothing, indigenous music, and East African fauna and flora, which he described as "dazzling display".

In particular, Stanczak was inspired by the 1954 book by Rudolf Arnheim, a German Gestalt theorist with strong connections to the Bauhaus, titled Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, which the artist translated into Polish.

[11]: 16  In 1965, Stanczak's work was included in the Museum of Modern Art's landmark exhibition The Responsive Eye curated by William C. Seitz.

[13] In 1973, Stanczak designed a mural for a 12-story residential building in Cleveland called Carter Manor, which would subsequently become badly damaged due to the contractor's decision to use enamel paint.

[3] Some critics have noted that Stanczak's medium of acrylic paint and his visual vocabulary had remained largely unchanged since the 1960s, consisting primarily of parallel lines, straight or curved, various grids, and basic geometric shapes such as circles or squares.