Roman Opalka Biography
Roman Opalka (1931-2011) was an important conceptual artist best known for his series of numerical paintings.
A few years after his birth in Hocquincourt, France, he and his Polish family returned to their home country, only to be deported to Germany by the Nazis in 1940. In 1946, the Opalka family was liberated by the U.S. Army and returned to Poland. Opalka began an apprenticeship as a lithographer at the Walbrzych Nowa Ruda Graphic School, Poland, and in 1949 began his studies at the Lódz School of Art and Design, also in Poland. In 1956, the artist obtained a degree from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, where he had studied since 1950.
Opalka was inspired by the Neo-Constructivists early in his career. These early paintings, which the artist called "Chronomes", were composed of spots and zigzags created with monochromatic paint. The artist's lifetime work of consecutive number paintings began in 1965, and in 1970 he dedicated himself to the goal of reaching infinity. Before settling in the south of France in 1977, Opalka obtained the DAAD scholarship in Berlin, Germany. The artist spent much of his life working in his home in France; Opalka rarely traveled because she wanted to continue painting her famous numerical canvases.
Opalka died during a trip to Rome on August 6, 2011.
