Plus Reversed

Like a scientist observing objective data, Richard Anuszkiewicz regards his paintings as experiments, investigations, and studies of color. A student of Josef Albers, the leading professor of color theory in the United States, Anuszkiewicz has developed a compelling painting style that gives visual form to scientific principles. Plus Reversed is a key example of what has been called Optical art or Op art in the United States—a painting whose color and pattern conjunctions cause involuntary perceptual effects in its viewer. Here the artist paired the complementary colors of red and green in repetitive patterns of plus-shaped signs, reminiscent of the voltage symbols on a battery. The juxtaposition of colors intensifies their vividness and induces a flickering retinal effect. The patterning creates a further reverberation of its own by changing colors as it expands outward, suggesting movement. Plus Reversed is one of Anuszkiewicz’s most accomplished early works; shown in important exhibitions, it received wide critical review in the 1960s. It is also the first painting the artist ever sold: according to collector James Michener, who saw it displayed in a gallery window on Madison Avenue in New York, “It quite knocked me over and I bought it on the spot.”