(Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer) One of the best-kept secrets at the Cleveland Institute of Art is that the institution has made some pretty hefty contributions to the history of modern and contemporary art in America.
That explains why the four-year undergraduate art college is paying tribute this fall to the minimalist abstractions of New York painter Robert Mangold, class of 1959; and the Op Art paintings of former faculty members Julian Stanczak and Ed Mieczkowski.
Two interrelated shows on Mangold and on Stanczak and Mieczkowski, opened Friday under the rubric, “Masters of Abstraction.” They function together as a luminous and optimistic celebration of geometry and color. They also offer a look at recent works — most from the past decade — by three important American artists whose viewpoints crystallized decades ago and whose careers were influenced, to greater and lesser degrees, by the art institute.