The Unmistakable Anuszkiewicz by Jonathan Burdick RichardAnuszkiewicz.com While recently teaching about the 1950s in my high school U.S. History course, a few students chose to research the art from the decade. Naturally, I recommended that they check out familiar names like Jackson Pollock, Elaine de Kooning, and others who popularized abstract expressionism as their starting point. "One of these sold for $140 million?!" one Google-savvy student exclaimed. "My little brother could do that," another added, thoroughly unimpressed. "The art world is complicated," I responded matter-of-factly. I did my best to explain action painting as a technique during which I remembered the Erie born-and-raised Richard Anuszkiewicz. While his optical art (better known as Op Art) was more associated with the '60s and '70s, he established himself and began to refine his innovative ideas during the '50s. I certainly can't claim to be a connoisseur and am not even remotely an art historian, but with my limited knowledge, I decided that my students might find Anuszkiewicz's mathematical approach to art to be an interesting contrast to the controlled chaos of Pollock's canvases.