Peter Stanick

Internationally recognized pop artist Peter Stanick passed away on February 9, 2026, in Sarasota, Florida. He was 72.

Stanick was known for his bold and distinctive abstract art, with work exhibited around the world, including in New York, Miami, Paris, Stockholm, Tokyo, and London.

Inspired by pop art icons Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, and Roy Lichtenstein, Stanick’s work captured imagery of everyday life in a colorful, playful, and sometimes provocative way, capturing the imagination of many art enthusiasts and collectors.

While growing up in the 1960s, Peter studied art at the Carnegie Museum of Art under Joseph Fitzpatrick, Warhol’s high school art teacher. He later received a scholarship to Carnegie Mellon University’s prestigious College of Fine Arts, graduating in 1975. He went on to earn a master’s degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1977 and later worked as an assistant to renowned American abstract expressionist painter Jack Tworkov.

In 1990, Stanick and his family moved from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Longboat Key, Florida, where he and his wife, Debbie, opened Exit Art.

Stanick was quick to enthrall the pop art world with his work, having solo installations in his hometown of Pittsburgh, then New York, and eventually Europe and Asia. His work was bold and precise, yet simple in message: “Enjoy the artwork.”

In 1997, Stanick’s digital image The Jam won the Silver Prize at the Osaka (Japan) Triennial, a highly regarded international art award — a significant accomplishment in itself, but even more so for an American. The Wall Street Journal would later proclaim Stanick “one of America’s hottest contemporary painters.”

Stanick’s paintings are part of collections at a number of museums and private organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Osaka Museum of Art in Osaka, and Fundación Amparo y Manuel (AMMA) in Mexico City.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Peter was one of the first artists to embrace and advance the fledgling world of computer-generated graphics, blending the colorful world of pop art with the finely tuned symmetry of the digital world to create mesmerizing pop images that captivated viewers. His adept artistry in this new field was highlighted in the groundbreaking 2001 book New Masters of Photoshop, in which he was a co-author.

Given all his accomplishments and accolades, Stanick will be most remembered as a dedicated family man, a devoted husband and a loving father and grandfather. He is survived by his wife, Debbie, his daughter, Lorraine, his son, Pete, his son-in-law Brian and grandchildren Graham, Felix and Wyatt. He is also survived by his brother Paul, his wife Sandy and their children David, Lauren and Matthew and many other nieces and nephews.

Peter’s legacy lives on not only in museums and collections around the world, but in the hearts of all who knew and loved him.