Roman Opalka (Abbeville-Saint-Lucien, 1931 – Rome, 2011) was a French artist of Polish origin. His family, which was originally from Poland, returned there in 1935, and was deported to a German labour camp in 1940, where it stayed up until the end of the war. Once freed, they went back to France, and finally re- turned to Warsaw, where Opalka attended the Walbrzych Nowa Ruda graphic design school (1946–1948) and the Lódz art and design school (1949). He studied at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts between 1950 and 1956, and went to Paris in 1957. 1966 saw him organise his first personal exhibition in the Dom Artysty Plastyka gallery in Warsaw. The following year, he started working on the OPALKA 1965/1 – ∞ project, to which he fully committed himself from 1970 onwards. This way, Opalka inextricably bound himself to Conceptual Art.

He received many awards between the ‘60s and the ‘70s: the First British International Print Bien- nial Grand Prize, Bradford (1968), two awards in Tokyo (1970), one at the 7th International Bien- nial Exhibition of Prints, and the other at the Ohara Art Museum, and the First prize of the Po- lish Ministry of Culture and Arts (1971). 1972 saw him visit the United States for the first time. In 1977, he moved to Teille, in France, and received an award at the 14th São Paulo Biennial.

He became a French citizen in 1985. Between 1985 and 1990, he taught at the Salzburg Summer Academy. In the following years, Opalka organised many exhibitions and received many awards, such as the National Painting Award, Paris (1991), and the Special Award of the Polish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Warsaw (1996). 1992 saw him exhibit his artworks in the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, whereas 1996 saw him represent Poland at the Venice Biennial. In 2002–2003, a great anthology of his works was displayed in several European cities. In 2009, he was awarded the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in Paris, as well as the Gloria Artis gold medal in Warsaw. Opalka died in Chieti on 6th August 2011.