Victor Vasarely
Encyclopedia
Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian French
artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.
His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art. Vasarely died in Paris in 1997.
and grew up in Piešťany
(then Pöstyén) and Budapest
where in 1925 he took up medical studies at Budapest University. In 1927 he abandoned medicine to learn traditional academic painting at the private Podolini-Volkmann Academy. In 1928/1929, he enrolled at Sándor Bortnyik
's műhely (lit. "workshop", in existence until 1938), then widely recognized as the center of Bauhaus
studies in Budapest. Cash-strapped, the műhely could not offer all that the Bauhaus offered. Instead it concentrated on applied graphic art and typographical design.
In 1929 he painted his Blue Study and Green Study. In 1930 he married his fellow student Claire Spinner (1908–1990). Together they had two sons, Andre and Jean-Pierre
. In Budapest, he worked for a ball-bearings company in accounting and designing advertising posters. Victor Vasarely became a graphics designer and a poster artist during the 1930s who combined patterns and organic images with each other.
Vasarely left Hungary and settled in Paris
in 1930 working as a graphic artist and as a creative consultant at the advertising agencies Havas, Draeger and Devambez
(1930–1935). His interactions with other artists during this time were limited. He played with the idea of opening up an institution modeled after Sándor Bortnyik
's műhely and developed some teaching material for it. Having lived mostly in cheap hotels, he settled in 1942/1944 in Saint-Céré
in the Lot
département. After the Second World War, he opened an atelier in Arcueil
, a suburb some 10 kilometers from the center of Paris (in the Val-de-Marne
département of the Île-de-France
). In 1961 he finally settled in Annet-sur-Marne
(in the Seine-et-Marne
département).
Vasarely eventually went on to produce art and sculpture mainly focused around the area of optical illusion
. Over the next three decades, Vasarely developed his style of geometric abstract art, working in various materials but using a minimal number of forms and colours:
_ucv_1954.jpg)
On 5 June 1970, Vasarely opened his first dedicated museum with over 500 works in a renaissance palace in Gordes
(closed in 1996). A second major undertaking was the Foundation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence
, a museum housed in a distinct structure specially designed by Vasarely. It was inaugurated in 1976 by French president Georges Pompidou
. Sadly the museum is now in a state of disrepair, several of the pieces on display have been damaged by water leaking from the ceiling. Also, in 1976 his large kinematic object Georges Pompidou was installed in the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Vasarely Museum located at his birth place in Pécs
, Hungary, was established with a large donation of works by Vasarely. In the same decade, he took a stab at industrial design with a 500-piece run of the upscale Suomi tableware by Timo Sarpaneva
that Vasarely decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain
maker's Studio Linie. In 1982 154 specially created serigraphs
were taken into space by the cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chrétien
on board the French-Soviet spacecraft Salyut 7
and later sold for the benefit of UNESCO
. In 1987, the second Hungarian Vasarely museum was established in Zichy Palace in Budapest with more than 400 works.
He died age 90 in Paris on 15 March 1997.
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.
His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art. Vasarely died in Paris in 1997.
Life and work
Vasarely was born in PécsPécs
Pécs is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the south-west of the country, close to its border with Croatia. It is the administrative and economical centre of Baranya county...
and grew up in Piešťany
Pieštany
Piešťany is a town in Slovakia. It is located in the western part of the country within the Trnava Region and is the seat of its own district. It is the biggest and best known spa town in Slovakia and has around 30,000 inhabitants.-History:...
(then Pöstyén) and Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
where in 1925 he took up medical studies at Budapest University. In 1927 he abandoned medicine to learn traditional academic painting at the private Podolini-Volkmann Academy. In 1928/1929, he enrolled at Sándor Bortnyik
Sándor Bortnyik
Sándor Bortnyik was a Hungarian painter and graphic designer. His work was greatly influenced by Cubism, Expressionism and Constructivism. He moved to Weimar in 1922 and was connected to the Bauhaus...
's műhely (lit. "workshop", in existence until 1938), then widely recognized as the center of Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
studies in Budapest. Cash-strapped, the műhely could not offer all that the Bauhaus offered. Instead it concentrated on applied graphic art and typographical design.
In 1929 he painted his Blue Study and Green Study. In 1930 he married his fellow student Claire Spinner (1908–1990). Together they had two sons, Andre and Jean-Pierre
Jean-Pierre Yvaral
Jean-Pierre Vasarely , professionally known as Yvaral, was a French artist working in the fields of op-art and kinetic art from 1954 onwards. He was the son of Victor Vasarely.-Life and work:...
. In Budapest, he worked for a ball-bearings company in accounting and designing advertising posters. Victor Vasarely became a graphics designer and a poster artist during the 1930s who combined patterns and organic images with each other.
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1930 working as a graphic artist and as a creative consultant at the advertising agencies Havas, Draeger and Devambez
Devambez
Devambez is the name of a fine printer's firm in Paris. It operated under that name from 1873, when a printing business established by the royal engraver Hippolyte Brasseux in 1826 was acquired by Édouard Devambez. At first the firm specialized in heraldic engraving, engraved letterheads and...
(1930–1935). His interactions with other artists during this time were limited. He played with the idea of opening up an institution modeled after Sándor Bortnyik
Sándor Bortnyik
Sándor Bortnyik was a Hungarian painter and graphic designer. His work was greatly influenced by Cubism, Expressionism and Constructivism. He moved to Weimar in 1922 and was connected to the Bauhaus...
's műhely and developed some teaching material for it. Having lived mostly in cheap hotels, he settled in 1942/1944 in Saint-Céré
Saint-Céré
Saint-Céré is a commune of 3, 540 people situated in the Lot valley in the Dordogne. The commune includes within its borders the castle of St-Laurent-Les-Tours, where the artist Jean Lurçat lived and worked for many years, and from which he operated a secret radio for the French Resistance...
in the Lot
Lot (département)
Lot is a department in the southwest of France named after the Lot River.- History :Lot is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the province of Languedoc. In 1808, some of the original southeastern cantons were...
département. After the Second World War, he opened an atelier in Arcueil
Arcueil
Arcueil is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-Name:The name Arcueil was recorded for the first time in 1119 as Arcoloï, and later in the 12th century as Arcoïalum, meaning "place of the arches" , in...
, a suburb some 10 kilometers from the center of Paris (in the Val-de-Marne
Val-de-Marne
Val-de-Marne is a French department, named after the Marne River, located in the Île-de-France region. The department is situated to the southeast of the city of Paris.- Geography :...
département of the Île-de-France
Île-de-France (région)
Île-de-France is the wealthiest and most populated of the twenty-two administrative regions of France, composed mostly of the Paris metropolitan area....
). In 1961 he finally settled in Annet-sur-Marne
Annet-sur-Marne
Annet-sur-Marne, , is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France.-External links:* * *...
(in the Seine-et-Marne
Seine-et-Marne
Seine-et-Marne is a French department, named after the Seine and Marne rivers, and located in the Île-de-France region.- History:Seine-et-Marne is one of the original 83 departments, created on March 4, 1790 during the French Revolution in application of the law of December 22, 1789...
département).
Vasarely eventually went on to produce art and sculpture mainly focused around the area of optical illusion
Optical illusion
An optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a perception that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source...
. Over the next three decades, Vasarely developed his style of geometric abstract art, working in various materials but using a minimal number of forms and colours:
- 1929-1944: Early graphics: Vasarely experimented with textural effects, perspective, shadow and light. His early graphic period results in works such as Zebras (1937), Chess Board (1935), and Girl-power (1934).
- 1944-1947: Les Fausses Routes - On the wrong track: During this period, Vasarely experimented with cubisticCubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
, futuristicFuturism (art)Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...
, expressionisticExpressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
, symbolisticSymbolism (arts)Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
and surrealisticSurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
paintings without developing a unique style. Afterwards, he said he was on the wrong track. He exhibited his works in the gallery of Denise RenéDenise RenéDenise René is a French gallerist.In 1955 she organized the exhibition Le Mouvement, which helped to popularize kinetic art.In 2001, the Centre Georges Pompidou paid homage to her with an exhibition titled "Denise René, une galerie dans l'aventure de l'art abstrait. 1944-1978".- External links :*...
(1946) and the gallery René Breteau (1947). Writing the introduction to the catalogue, Jacques PrévertJacques PrévertJacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain very popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. Some of the movies he wrote are extremely well regarded, with Les Enfants du Paradis considered one of the greatest films of all time.-Life and...
placed Vasarely among the surrealistsSurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. Prévert creates the term imaginoires (images + noir, black) to describe the paintings. Self Portrait (1941) and The Blind Man (1946) are associated with this period. - 1947-1951: Developing geometric abstract art (optical art): Finally, Vasarely found his own style. The overlapping development are named after their geographical heritage. Denfert refers to the works influenced by the white tiled walls of the Paris Denfert - Rochereau metro station. Ellipsoid pebbles and shells found during a vacation in 1947 at the BretonBrittanyBrittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
coast at Belle ÎleBelle ÎleBelle-Île or Belle-Île-en-Mer is a French island off the coast of Brittany in the département of Morbihan, and the largest of Brittany's islands. It is 14 km from the Quiberon peninsula.Administratively, the island forms a canton: the canton of Belle-Île...
inspired him to the Belles-Isles works. Since 1948, Vasarely usually spent his summer months in GordesGordesGordes is a commune in the Vaucluse département in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.The residents are known as Gordiens...
in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'AzurProvence-Alpes-Côte d'AzurProvence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur or PACA is one of the 27 regions of France.It is made up of:* the former French province of Provence* the former papal territory of Avignon, known as Comtat Venaissin...
. There, the cubic houses led him to the composition of the group of works labelled Gordes/Cristal. He worked on the problem of empty and filled spaces on a flat surface as well as the stereoscopic view.
- 1951-1955: Kinetic images, black-white photographies: From his Gordes works he developed his kinematic images, superimposed acrylic glassAcrylic glassPoly is a transparent thermoplastic, often used as a light or shatter-resistant alternative to glass. It is sometimes called acrylic glass. Chemically, it is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate...
panes create dynamic, moving impressions depending on the viewpoint. In the black-white period he combined the frames into a single pane by transposing photographies in two colours. Tribute to Malevitch, a ceramic wall picture of 100 m² adorns the University of CaracasCentral University of VenezuelaThe Central University of Venezuela is a premier public University of Venezuela located in Caracas...
, Venezuela which he co-designed in 1954 with the architect Carlos Raúl VillanuevaCarlos Raúl VillanuevaCarlos Raúl Villanueva was the most prominent Venezuelan architect of the 20th century and one of the great Modernists. He played a major role in the development and modernization of Caracas, Maracay and other cities across the country...
, is a major work of this period. Kinetic art flourished and works by Vasarely, CalderAlexander CalderAlexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
, DuchampMarcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
, Man RayMan RayMan Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
, Soto, TinguelyJean TinguelyJean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
were exhibited at the Denise RenéDenise RenéDenise René is a French gallerist.In 1955 she organized the exhibition Le Mouvement, which helped to popularize kinetic art.In 2001, the Centre Georges Pompidou paid homage to her with an exhibition titled "Denise René, une galerie dans l'aventure de l'art abstrait. 1944-1978".- External links :*...
gallery under the title Le Mouvement (the motion). Vasarely published his Yellow Manifest. Building on the research of constructivistConstructivism (art)Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
and BauhausBauhaus', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
pioneers, he postulated that visual kinetics (plastique cinétique) relied on the perception of the viewer who is considered the sole creator, playing with optical illusionOptical illusionAn optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a perception that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source...
s. - 1955-1965: Folklore planétaire, permutations and serial art: On 2 March 1959, Vasarely patented his method of unités plastiques. Permutations of geometric forms are cut out of a coloured square and rearranged. He worked with a strictly defined palette of colours and forms (three reds, three greens, three blues, two violets, two yellows, black, white, gray; three circles, two squares, two rhomboids, two long rectangles, one triangle, two dissected circles, six ellipses) which he later enlarged and numbered. Out of this plastic alphabet, he started serial artSerial artSerial art is an art movement in which uniform elements or objects were assembled in accordance with strict modular principles. The composition of serial art is a systematic process....
, an endless permutation of forms and colours worked out by his assistants. (The creative process is produced by standardized tools and impersonal actors which questions the uniqueness of a work of art.) In 1963, Vasarely presented his palette to the public under the name of Folklore planetaire. - 1965-: Hommage à l'hexagone, Vega: The Tribute to the hexagon series consists of endless transformations of indentations and relief adding color variations, creating a perpetual mobile of optical illusion. In 1965 Vasarely was included in the Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
exhibition The Responsive Eye, created under the direction of William C. Seitz. His Vega series plays with spherical swelling grids creating an optical illusion of volume. In October 1967, designer Will BurtinWill BurtinWill Burtin was a graphic designer and art director for Fortune Magazine. He designed for Union Carbide, Eastman Kodak, The Smithsonian, and Upjohn. In 1971, he received a gold medal from AIGA...
invited Vasarely to make a presentation to Burtin's Vision ’67 conference, held at New York University.
On 5 June 1970, Vasarely opened his first dedicated museum with over 500 works in a renaissance palace in Gordes
Gordes
Gordes is a commune in the Vaucluse département in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.The residents are known as Gordiens...
(closed in 1996). A second major undertaking was the Foundation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence
Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
, a museum housed in a distinct structure specially designed by Vasarely. It was inaugurated in 1976 by French president Georges Pompidou
Georges Pompidou
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.-Biography:...
. Sadly the museum is now in a state of disrepair, several of the pieces on display have been damaged by water leaking from the ceiling. Also, in 1976 his large kinematic object Georges Pompidou was installed in the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Vasarely Museum located at his birth place in Pécs
Pécs
Pécs is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the south-west of the country, close to its border with Croatia. It is the administrative and economical centre of Baranya county...
, Hungary, was established with a large donation of works by Vasarely. In the same decade, he took a stab at industrial design with a 500-piece run of the upscale Suomi tableware by Timo Sarpaneva
Timo Sarpaneva
Timo Sarpaneva was an influential Finnish designer, sculptor, and educator best known in the art world for innovative work in glass, which often merged attributes of display art objects with utilitarian designations. While glass remained his most commonly addressed medium, he worked with metal,...
that Vasarely decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
maker's Studio Linie. In 1982 154 specially created serigraphs
Screen-printing
Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate...
were taken into space by the cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chrétien
Jean-Loup Chrétien
Jean-Loup Jacques Marie Chrétien, is a French engineer, a retired Général de Brigade in the Armée de l'Air , and a former CNES astronaut. He flew on two Franco-Soviet space missions and a NASA Space Shuttle mission...
on board the French-Soviet spacecraft Salyut 7
Salyut 7
Salyut 7 was a space station in low Earth orbit from April 1982 to February 1991. It was first manned in May 1982 with two crew via Soyuz T-5, and last visited in June 1986, by Soyuz T-15. Various crew and modules were used over its lifetime, including a total of 12 manned and 15 unmanned launches...
and later sold for the benefit of UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
. In 1987, the second Hungarian Vasarely museum was established in Zichy Palace in Budapest with more than 400 works.
He died age 90 in Paris on 15 March 1997.
Awards
- 1964: Guggenheim Prize
- 1970: French Chevalier de L'Ordre de la Légion d'honneurLégion d'honneurThe Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
- Art Critics Prize, Brussels
- Gold Medal at the Milan Triennale
Museums
- 1970-1996: Vasarely Museum in GordesGordesGordes is a commune in the Vaucluse département in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.The residents are known as Gordiens...
Palace, VaucluseVaucluseThe Vaucluse is a department in the southeast of France, named after the famous spring, the Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.- History :Vaucluse was created on 12 August 1793 out of parts of the departments of Bouches-du-Rhône, Drôme, and Basses-Alpes...
, France (closed) - 1976: Fondation Vasarely, Aix-en-ProvenceAix-en-ProvenceAix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
, France - 1976: Vasarely Museum, PécsPécsPécs is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the south-west of the country, close to its border with Croatia. It is the administrative and economical centre of Baranya county...
, Hungary - 1987: Vasarely Museum, Zichy Palace, ÓbudaÓbudaÓbuda was a historical city in Hungary. United with Buda and Pest in 1873 it now forms part of District III-Óbuda-Békásmegyer of Budapest. The name means Old Buda in Hungarian...
, BudapestBudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary
External links
- Vasarely: Images, Exhibits, Descriptions, Biography
- Association Vasarely
- Online petition to save Museum Fondation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence, France
- Vasarely Museum, Zichy Palace, Budapest
- Culture+Travel magazine feature from 2008 about the Vasarely Foundation in Aix
- Vasarely VS VRML - Caldor
- Victor Vasarely
- Victor Vasarely virtual exhibition in the Kortil Gallery in Rijeka, availaible as free download in Apple Mac App Store