Victor Vasarely
Hungarian-French artist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hungarian-French artist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Victor Vasarely (French: [viktɔʁ vazaʁeli]; born Győző Vásárhelyi, Hungarian: [ˈvaːʃaːrhɛji ˈɟøːzøː]; 9 April 1906[1] – 15 March 1997) was a Hungarian-French artist, who is widely accepted as a "grandfather" and leader[2] of the Op art movement.
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Victor Vasarely | |
|---|---|
Vasarely c. 1930 | |
| Born | Győző Vásárhelyi 9 April 1906 |
| Died | 15 March 1997 (aged 90) Paris, France |
| Nationality | Hungarian French |
| Education | Műhely |
| Known for | Painting, sculpture |
| Notable work | Zebra (c. 1930s) |
| Movement | Op art |
| Website | Victor Vasarely website |
His work titled Zebra, created in 1937, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op art.
Vasarely was born in Pécs and grew up in Piešťany (then Pöstény) and Budapest, where, in 1925, he took up medical studies at Eötvös Loránd 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 private art school called Műhely (lit. "Workshop", in existence until 1938), then widely recognized as Budapest's center of Bauhaus studies. 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 was also an artist and used the professional name 'Yvaral'. He worked for a ball-bearing company in accounting and designing advertising posters in Budapest. Vasarely became a graphic designer and a poster artist during the 1930s combining patterns and organic images.
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Vasarely left Hungary and settled in Paris in 1930. He worked 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 thought of opening 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 about 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 using 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:
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In October 1967, designer Will Burtin 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 (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, two years after his death. 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 birthplace 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.[3] 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.
A new Vasarely exhibit was mounted in Paris at Musée en Herbe in 2012.
The original UK cover for David Bowie's second album 'David Bowie' (1969) features Vasarely's work in the background.[4]
In 2019, a temporary exhibition of Vasarely's work titled Le Partage des Formes was displayed in the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.[5]
Inaugurated in July 2024, a permanent exhibition of Vasarely's work in the Arkas Collection is being displayed in the Arkas Art Center in Alaçatı.[6]
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