Victor Vasarely

Victor Vasarely (born Vásárhelyi Győző) was a Hungarian-French painter, born in Pécs in 1906 and died in Paris in 1997. He is often regarded as the father of Op art, a movement based on optical illusions that developed in the 1960s. His importance lies in turning geometric abstraction into a systematic method of composition and in influencing generations of artists and designers.

He began medical studies in Budapest in 1925 but left in 1927 to learn traditional academic painting at a private academy. He then enrolled at Sándor Bortnyik's workshop, widely seen in Budapest as a centre of Bauhaus-inspired study, although its teaching focused on applied graphic arts and design. In 1930 he married his fellow student Claire Spinner, and the couple had two sons, André and Jean-Pierre, who later worked as an artist under the name Yvaral. That same year Vasarely settled in Paris, where until 1935 he worked as a graphic artist and creative consultant for advertising agencies.

Until the war his output was largely graphic, with experiments in texture, perspective and light. After trying various languages, including Cubism and Surrealism, he found his own path from 1947 in geometric abstraction, using a minimal range of forms and colours. His series took their names from places: the white tiles of the Denfert-Rochereau metro station in Paris, or the cubic houses of Gordes in Provence, where he spent his summers from 1948. Zebras (1937), from his Hungarian years, is regarded as one of the earliest precursors of Op art because its curved stripes seem to merge with the background.

In the 1950s he turned to kinetic art and published his Yellow Manifesto, arguing that the viewer completes the work by interpreting its optical illusions. In 1959 he patented his method of plastic units, an alphabet of forms and colours that could be combined in series, which challenged the idea of the unique artwork. His reputation grew in the 1960s: in 1965 he took part in The Responsive Eye exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1970 he opened a museum devoted to his work in Gordes, and in 1976 the Fondation Vasarely opened in Aix-en-Provence.

His legacy is most visible in graphic design, advertising and architecture, where visual play remains a common resource.