Modern & Postwar Artists

Victor Vasarely

1906 - 1997

Considered one of the progenitors of Op Art for his optically complex and illusionistic paintings, Victor Vasarely spent the course of a long, critically acclaimed career seeking, and arguing for, an approach to art making that was deeply social.

He placed primary importance on the development of an engaging, accessible visual language that could be universally understood—this language, for Vasarely, was geometric abstraction, more commonly known as Op Art. More than pleasing tricks for the eye, Vasarely insisted, “pure form and pure color can signify the world.”