09/16/2024 General, Modern & Contemporary Art, General Paintings
NEW YORK, NY -- A special collection of works from the pioneering Cleveland-based Op-Art collaborative, The Anonima Group, will be offered in the sale of 20th Century Abstraction on September 24, 2024. Across 21 lots, the collection includes examples by Ernst Benkert, Edwin Mieczkowski and Francis Hewitt. These works are from the Estate of Lisa Woods, the former wife of Ernst Benkert. The Anonima Group, founded in 1960 by Benkert, coalesced around their rejection of many art world norms: commercial sales, art competitions (including biennials and juried exhibitions), the individual identity of the artist, as well as Abstract Expressionism, still the prevailing movement of the era.
Meeting in the late 1950s first at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, and later at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, Benkert, Mieczkowski and Hewitt began collaborating on Long Island at Benkert’s studio. Mieczkowski and Hewitt later started teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Art, returning to Benkert’s studio to continue their collaborations. Meanwhile, Benkert began a series of trips to Europe, where he met artists sharing his practice of geometric abstraction, such as Burgoyne Diller, Cesar Domela and Henryk Stazewski. Periodically meeting and collaborating, typically during summers when the group was not teaching, Anonima built a body of work, first exhibited in Cleveland in the fall of 1962. The year 1965 was very busy for Anonima; following coverage in Time magazine and The New York Times, the legendary Martha Jackson Gallery included select works from Anonima in the group exhibition “Vibrations Eleven.” This was closely followed by Benkert, Mieczkowski and Hewitt being included in the major Op-Art exhibition “The Responsive Eye,” held at MoMA that same year, where the group was exhibited alongside Josef Albers, Bridget Riley, Kenneth Noland and many others.
The collection of works in the sale offers 21 lots, both unique works on canvas, panel and paper by Benkert and Mieczkowski, as well as a group of prints by Hewitt. The works by Benkert include two fantastic large-scale canvases, both from 1973, and both entitled Spring. Each work features precise geometric forms, in bright yet muted tones, evocative of spring colors. Benkert achieves an architectural elegance in both works, recalling Art Deco while remaining wholly contemporary. A coolness and grace is present, with Benkert masterfully treading the rigidity of geometric abstraction while retaining an ethereal glow.
Headlining the group of works by Mieczkowski is Plano-Portrait, a diamond-shaped canvas that bounces between hot reds and lighter blues, its overall composition showcasing the delightfully illusory nature inherent to Op-Art. Hewitt is represented here by a group of five relief prints on Masonite, all from 1959. The forms used by Hewitt, while hard-edged flat black shapes, flow and undulate with an element of mystery that is reminiscent of Robert Motherwell, yet like the best of Anonima’s works, pushes forward into new, conceptual territory.
While many of Anonima’s peers—Op-Art masters Richard Stankiewicz and Victor Vasarely, as well as the kinetic/Op-Art Zero Group of Italy—received more recognition in their time, Anonima intentionally avoided commercial success to better pursue their goals. However, as shown in the aforementioned MoMA exhibition, as well as the blockbuster 2007 “Optic Nerve: Perceptual Art of the 1960s” retrospective at the Columbus Museum of Art, the works of Benkert, Mieczkowski and Hewitt are not only as aesthetically accomplished as their peers, but also focus on new ideas and concepts, reconsidering the role of the artist, and pushing abstract painting into exciting new territory.
Colin Hewitt, son of artist Francis Hewitt maintains the website Anonima.org, an exhaustive archive that made this article possible.
Auction Tuesday, September 24, 2024 at 11am
Exhibition September 21 – 23
Featured in the sale is a collection of works from the pioneering Cleveland-based Op-Art collaborative, The Anonima Group. These works are consigned by the Estate of Lisa Woods, the former wife of artist Ernst Benkert.
