VASARELY

Vasarely is widely regarded as the father of Op-Art. During the 1960’s and 70’s his optical images became part of the popular culture, having a deep impact on architecture, computer science, fashion, and the way we now look at things in general.

During the 1960’s and 70’s his optical images became part of the popular culture, having a deep impact on architecture, computer science, fashion, and the way we now look at things in general.  Even though Vasarely achieved great fame he insisted on making his art accessible to everyone. His motto was “Art for all”.

Victor Vasarely enrolled in the Muhely – at that time run by Sándor Bortnyik – in 1929. The school worked very much to the goals of the original Bauhaus. The basic concepts of the teaching were that all the arts and crafts and architecture should achieve a unity of purpose based on the cube, the rectangle and the circle.

In 1947 Vasarely started to take his holidays in Brittany’s Belle-Isle and found inspiration in his walks along the beaches of this beautiful island: “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.”

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.

Roberto Capucci 1965 homage to Vasarely.

1963, Italsider magazine cover.

During 1960-65, Vasarely evolved his ‘Alphabet Plastique’ – a grid based system which established modular relationships between forms and colours. This period marked the reintroduction of colour to Vasarely’s works in the two major series of this time – Alphabet Plastique and Folklore Planetaire.

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