Victor Vasarely 1906-1997

1. Victor Vasarely1906-1997 The Father of Op Art “The art of tomorrow will be a collective treasure or it will not be art at all”

2. Vasarely at work - 1948

3. Early Life • Victor Vasarely was born in the city of Pécs, Hungary in 1906. • Throughout his early life, Vasarely found himself drawn more towards the sciences than the arts. In 1925 he entered the University of Budapest’s School of Medicine where he spent two years studying. • In 1927 Vasarely made a radical and life changing decision – he decided to suspend his studies in medicine and change direction completely, making the decision to pursue a career in art.

4. Etudes Bauhaus A Victor Vasarely 1929 Oil on board

5. Victor Vasarely enrolled in the Muhely Academy, a school based on the concept that all arts and crafts and architecture should achieve a unity of purpose based on the cube, the rectangle and the circle.

6. Self portrait Victor Vasarely 1934 Pastel on paper

7. 1930, looking for something more, Vasarely moved to Paris which at that time was the centre of the art world. • In 1931, Victor Vasarely married a fellow student from the Muhely, Claire Spinner. They were to have two sons. • Vasarely found work at various advertising agencies. He spent more and more of his evenings working on his own art. His ambition was to make the night job the day job

8. L'Echiquier (The Chess Board) Victor Vasarely, 1935 Oil on board

9. The Graphic Image 1930-44 • Vasarely’s work during this period was largely figurative and concerned with the graphic image, but within it lay the kinetic and optical seeds of his later mature work. • “The Chess Board” was painted in 1935 and within it one can see many of the themes Vasarely was to develop over the coming decades.

10. La Cuisine Jaune a Cocherel Victor Vasarely, 1946 Oil on wood

11. “On the Wrong Track” 1944-47 • A major change in Vasarely’s style came about after his first important exhibition in 1944. The exhibition was a critical success, and Vasarely made the decision to devote himself to painting. • During this time, Vasarely had become aware of the work of the abstract painters. The ideas of these artists had a significant impact on Vasarely and by 1945 he was fully committed to abstract painting. • Victor Vasarely’s work was included in three important exhibitions in Paris – He was on his way to becoming an accepted painter but did not yet feel that he had found his own individual style.

12. Ezinor Victor Vasarely 1949 Oil on board

13. Abstract beginnings of Op Art 1947-51 • In 1947 Vasarely started to take his holidays in Brittany’s Belle-Isle and found inspiration in his walks along the beaches. • “The pebbles, the sea shells on the beach, the whirlpools, the hovering mist, the sunshine, the sky… in the rocks, in the pieces of broken bottles, polished by the rhythmic coming and going of the waves, I am certain to recognize the internal geometry of nature.” • In this period, Vasarely began to move from paintings that were abstract but based on images, to abstract works composed entirely of geometric shapes. Vasarely had found his own style, and “Optic Art” was born.

14. Vega Victor Vasarely 1957 Acrylic on canvas

15. Black and White 1951-1960 • Between 1951 and 1959 Victor Vasarely continued working with geometric shapes and also began to paint predominantly in black and white. In the works of this period we can see the development of what we have come to know as Op Art. • In “Vega”Vasarely paints a huge checkerboard, its regularity disturbed by the bending of the lines that make the squares. • The painting presents our eyes with contradictory data as we read part of the field in terms of diagonals and other parts in terms of horizontals and verticals. The painting practically forces us to move backwards and forwards and as we do so, the field appears to move – expanding, contracting and undulating.

16. Alphabet VB - Victor Vasarely 1960 Acrylic on canvas

17. Color & The Plastic Alphabet 1960-65 • Vasarely evolved his ‘Alphabet Plastique’ – a grid based system which established modular relationships between forms and colors. This period marked the reintroduction of color to Vasarely’s works. • In the Alphabet Plastique series, each painting was based on 15 root forms derived from the circle, square and triangle. Variations on these root forms were then developed and painted using colors from different color scales, each with 20 hues. Each unit within the grid – a ‘unite plastique’ – has a foreground and a background. • What Vasarely in effect created was an art “programming language” that allowed for endless combinations of forms and colors to create individual and unique works. Vasarely wanted to reach out through his universal language to transmit basic human values to the general public outside of the art establishment.

18. Bora III Victor Vasarely 1964 Oil on canvas

19. International Acclaim & The Responsive Eye • Although Vasarely had become increasingly well known, he was not yet internationally known by the public. • This changed in 1965 when Vasarely exhibited at an exhibition called “The Responsive Eye” at New York’s Museum of Modern art. • Vasarely was immediately dubbed the ‘father of Op Art’. The reaction of the public to the exhibition was fantastic, and for the next few years Op Art spread to advertising, packaging, fashion and design. • The Responsive Eye gave Vasarely the status of an international art celebrity and was invited to show at numerous major galleries and museums around the world.

20. Vonal-Stri Victor Vasarely 1975 Acrylic on canvas

21. Vonal Series • Over the coming years Vasarely created several distinct series of works which were to cement his status. • One of these was his ‘Vonal’ series, where he revisited his earlier line studies (such as the Zebres series) and graphic work but this time making full use of colour. The series is a continuation of his explorations of movement and perception. • In “Vonal-Stri” the feeling of movement and depth are created by Vasarely’s use of lines of decreasing scale advancing towards the centre of the canvas – the further in we look to the centre, the further away the field appears to be from us. The use of changing colors across the field also serves to provide the viewer with the feeling of kinetic energy, depth and space.

22. Vega-Nor Victor Vasarely 1969 Acrylic on Canvas

23. Vega Series • In 1968, Victor Vasarely started another series of paintings which became hugely popular and widely known – the ‘Vega’ series. • In the Vega series we see some of the most advanced applications of Vasarely’s systematic approach to form and color. The paintings are based on spherical distortions to a polychromatic grid. The surface appears to have been warped, giving the feeling of something trying either to break out or to recede back into the depths of the surface. • “Vega-Nor” is one of the best known of these works.

24. Keple-Gestalt Victor Vasarely, 1968 Acrylic on canvas

25. Gestalt Series • A third major series that Vasarely worked on was the Gestalt series, which crosses over into Vasarely’s fascination with the hexagon. • The paintings in this series are characterised by solid, yet ethereal and seemingly impossible three-dimensional shapes composed of cubes and cellular like structures that confuse the viewer visually. Vasarely makes full use of variations in color to further the illusion of space, light, movement and structure. • One of this Gestalt series is “Keple-Gestalt”

26. Untitled (example of a “program”) Victor Vasarely c.1978

27. How Vassarely Worked • As early as the 1950s, Vasarely was using preliminary scale drawings for his works. Vasarely called these programs. • Vasarely had developed a color system and would create new linear forms and shapes to which to apply his color system. This was his artistic ‘alphabet’. He would then try out this alphabet on a ‘program’ before embarking on a new series. Initially Vasarely created the actual works from his programs himself but from 1965 onwards he made use of assistants. • From the outset Vasarely was fascinated by technology and saw the early promise of computers – he insisted for example that computers be installed at the Vasarely Foundation. Vasarely’s system of working, his plastic alphabet and programs draw parallels with computer programming and the computer art of today and show beyond doubt how far ahead Vasarely was of his time.

28. Tekers-MC Victor Vasarely 1981 Acrylic on canvas

29. Later Years • Vasarely continued to explore depth and movement in his highly structured paintings well into his seventies. These paintings are as exciting and innovative (and were always on the same huge scale) as the works of his earlier years. Victor Vasarely was a man of huge energy and inventiveness. • In his old age he was heaped with honors. The Vasarely Foundation museum opened in 1976 in Provence, France, as did the Vasarely museum in Pecs, Hungary. In 1987 a further Vasarely museum opened in Budapest, Hungary. • Vasarely died in Paris on March 15th 1997 aged 91.