Ernst Benkert

Creator of optically complex paintings and drawings, Ernst Benkert spent his career exploring the science and psychology of perception through art. Together with Francis Hewitt and Edward Mieczkowski, Benkert formed the Anonima Group (1960-71) and became one of the leading practitioners of Op art and geometric abstraction in America. He approached the creative process analytically and impersonally, considering art-making an effective and objective means through which to investigate vision. Though based on a flat grid, Benkert’s works seem full of depth and movement, their shapes and colors continually undulating, shifting, and flickering.