Victor Vasarely is internationally recognized as one of the most important artists of the 20th century. He is the acknowledged leader of the Op Art movement, and his innovations in color and optical illusion have had a strong influence on many modern artists.
In 1947, Vasarely discovered his place in abstract art. Influenced by his experiences at Breton Beach of Belle Isle, he concluded that "internal geometry" could be seen below the surface of the entire world. He conceived that form and color were inseparable. "Every form is a base for color; every color is the attribute of a form." Forms from nature were thus transposed into purely abstract elements in his artworks. Recognizing the inner geometry of nature, Vasarely wrote, "the ellipsoid form...will slowly, but tenaciously, take hold of the surface, and become its raison d'etre. Henceforth, this ovoid form will signify in all my works of this period, the 'oceanic feeling'...I can no longer admit an inner world and another, an outer world, apart."
Vasarely was born in Pecs, Hungary in 1906. After receiving his baccalaureate degree in 1925, he began studying art at the Podolini-Volkmann Academy in Budapest. In 1928, he transferred to the Muhely Academy, also known as the Budapest Bauhaus, where he studied with Alexander Bortnijik. At the Academy, he became familiar with the contemporary research in color and optics by Jaohannes ltten, Josef Albers, and the Constructivists Malevich and Kandinsky.
After his first one-man show in 1930 in Budapest, Vasarely moved to Paris. For the next thirteen years, he devoted himself to graphic studies. His lifelong fascination with linear patterning led him to draw figurative and abstract patterned sub sects. During this period, Vasarely also created multi-dimensional works of art by super-imposing patterned layers on one another to attain the illusion of depth.
During the 1950's, Vasarely wrote a series of manifestos on the use of optical phenomena for artistic purposes. Together with his artworks, these were a significant influence on younger artists. According to the artist, "In the last analysis, the picture-object in pure composition appears to me as the last link in the family paintings,' still possessing by its shining beauty, an end in itself. But it is already more than a painting, the forms and colors which compose it are still situated on the plane, but the plastic event which they trigger fuses in front of and in the plane. It is an end, but also a beginning, a kind of launching pad for future achievements."
His work won his international renown and he received several prestigious prizes. He died in Paris in 1997. The Vasarely Museum in Hungary contains a major collection of his work, as well as that of many other Hungarian-born artists who worked abroad.
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