Translumina Series

In the “Translumina Series,” Richard Anuszkiewicz turned to sculptural materials like wood relief, aluminum and steel sheets, and bronze tubing for the first time. Working in three dimensions, Anuszkiewicz constructed shaped canvases for his optical illusions, painting them with thin stripes of interweaving colors to create a sense of vibration in the viewer’s eye. “The ideas I work on are essentially timeless,” the artist once said. “Working with basic ideas will always be exciting, and if color or form is visually exciting in any profound sense, it will be that way ten or twenty years from now also.” Anuskiewitz also reimagined the “basic ideas” of the “Translumina Series” as prints, transforming many of the sculptural compositions into silkscreens. In 1986, the artist even created a “Translumina” print for one of his “Annuals” gifts—a series of prints that he would give to friends and family each year and would not sell to the public.