Wojciech Fangor is one of the most recognisable Polish artists working in the 20th century. His artistic path is full of fascinating twists and turns. Fangor's works entered the canon of socialist realism, and his collaboration with Stanisław Zamecznik in 1958, involving the creation of a study of space, was a precursor to similar activities in world art. Fangor also made a name for himself as one of the main representatives of the Polish poster school. His solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in 1970 confirmed his position in the New York art world as one of the pioneers of op-art, although he had begun to show interest in this form as early as the early 1960s. In 1965, he took part in the important op-art exhibition The Responsive Eye at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), curated by William C. Seitz, which contributed to the recognition of this direction.

Fangor's artistic debut took place in 1949, where he presented works with Cubist influences. Socialist Realism, however, turned his work in a different direction, standing out with works such as 'Mother Korean' and 'Figures'. His self-ironic approach to Socialist Realism was evident in his 1953 work depicting the Palace of Culture and Science.

In 1958, Fangor together with Zamecznik created the installation 'Study of Space', which revolutionised the perception of space in art. This work, later presented at the Stedelijk Museum, contributed to the development of the concept of the open work.

In 1961, Fangor left Poland, travelling through Vienna, the United States, West Berlin and as far as England before finally settling in the USA in 1966. There he continued his academic and artistic work, focusing on the op-art that brought him international fame. In the 1970s, the artist explored new themes in his work, including television paintings, which he continued to paint until around 1984, critically addressing contemporary media culture.

Wojciech Fangor remained in the United States until 1999, when he decided to return to Poland. His works are in many prestigious museum collections around the world, including El Museo del Barrio, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago.

Fangor's artistic debut was the 1949 exhibition, where, at the dawn of Socialist Realism, he showed painting with a distinctly Cubist influence. However, Socialist Realism turned his art onto other tracks. Among the works from this period, a special place is occupied by 'Mother Korean' and 'Characters', which are not only some of the best works of the period, but are also questionable by their ambiguous contexts, which seem to grow in a self-ironic painting from 1953 showing the Palace of Culture and Science being carried in, which at first glance appears inverted. Moving away from Socialist Realism, he sought - like many others - a safe space in the poster. His poster for René Clément's 1952 film The Walls of Malapaga won him an award at the National Poster Exhibition.

In 1958, together with Stanisław Zamecznik, he prepared the spatial installation 'Study of Space' in the now-defunct salon of 'Nowa Kultura', discovering how dispersed backgrounds allow the construction of a dynamic pictorial space. The artists ultimately did not treat them as independent compositions, but proposed a kind of environment. The twenty canvases arranged in the room created complex spatial relationships, creating a kind of open-ended work. The artists showed another exhibition devoted to the study of space at the Stedelijk Museum in 1959.

In 1961, Wojciech Fangor decided to leave Poland. Initially to Vienna, and from there to the USA in 1962 as a fellow of The Institute of Contemporary Arts. He then briefly returned to Europe, following a Ford scholarship in West Berlin, and then to Bath Academy of Art in Corsham, England, for a year. Eventually, however, he moved to the USA in 1966. He taught at, among others, Farleigh Dickinson University in Madison, N.J. (1966-1983) and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1967-1968). Although it was the op art paintings that brought him his greatest fame, the mid-1970s saw another turn in his work. The artist turned to so-called television paintings, which he painted until around 1984. Abstraction was replaced by figuration, or rather a variety of images, including television images, of contemporary culture. He was fascinated primarily by the media structure of the image, but also by its wider cultural context. He seems to approach it critically, although not without a fascination, but one that is critical of the medium, sensing its banality.

The artist stayed in the USA until 1999, when he decided to return to Poland. He then settled near Warsaw. In 2014, a year before his death, he designed a series of murals for the Warsaw metro. His paintings are in many museum collections and private collections around the world, including. "Mf" from 1969 at El Museo del Barrio, "Number 17" at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York (the painting was shown in the exhibition "The Responsive Eye" in 1965), "Untitled" also at MoMA, "M63" at the Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in San Francisco, "M5-1969" at the Carnegie Art Museum in Pittsburgh, "M 48" at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and "M39" at the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago.