the world of op art

THE WORLD OF OP ART

THE WORLD OF OP ART

Edited by Ming lang Jiang

THE WORLD OF OP ART

CONTENTS

WHAT IS OP ART?

WHY IS OP ART SO DIFFERENT?

FAMOUS OP ART ARTISITS

PART 2

Introduction

Fashion

Sculpture

Element

Victor Vasarely

History

Color

Bridget Louise Riley

Function

Jean-Pierre Vasarely

PART 1

PART 3

CONTENTS

Yellow Edged Pink Square, 1979, Acrylic on Canvas

THE WORLD OF OP ART

Sculpture, Plexiglas, Sarah Dubois, 2014

02

WHAT IS OP ART?IntroductionOp art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art

that uses optical illusions. Op art works are abstract,

with many better known pieces created in black and

white. Typically, they give the viewer the impression

of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibrating

patterns, or of swelling or warping.

The Op art movement was driven by artists who were

interested in investigating various perceptual effects.

Some did so out of sheer enthusiasm for research and

experiment, some with the distant hope that the effects

they mastered might find a wide public and hence

integrate modern art into society in new ways. Rather

like the geometric art from which it had sprung, Op art

seemed to supply a style that was highly appropriate to

modern society.

Op art is the short form for the art movement known as

optical art. Time magazine described Op art as “Pictures

That Attack the Eye” in October 1964; consequently, the

Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan created an exhi-

bition of Op art in 1965 that boasted 123 paintings and

sculptures from 100 artists of 15 nations.

The optical art movement has been especially common

in American art since the1960s, but the style really

traces back to the year 1839 and one French chem-

ist, Michel-Eugene Chevreul. He studied the effect of

pairing complimentary colors, and his influence spread

importantly to the father of Op art, Georges Seurat,

the inventor of pointillism

WHAT IS OP ART

03

THE WORLD OF OP ART

Optical art is concerned with creating optical illusions.

The style typically favors abstraction over representation

because observers must really focus their eyes and com-

prehend what they see. An illusion might suggest one

thing at first, but a closer look reveals something differ-

ent in the picture. Many Op art pieces are completed in

two colors—black and white. The optical illusion creates

different responses in observers through patterns,

flashes, contrasts, movement, and hidden imagery. The

observer is pulled into the picture in the same way that

he or she is attacked by the image.

Philip Taaffe (b. 1955) was born in Elizabeth, New

Jersey, and trained at Cooper Union in New York. He

has studied and exhibited internationally, and his works

appear in museums such as Museum of Modern Art in

Manhattan. Taaffe demonstrates the concepts of Op art

in works like Eros and Psyche and Pine Columns. Eros

and Psyche (1993-1994) is a vivid abstraction with bold

colors of red, white, black, and orange. This painting

reflects a similar style to some Abstract Expressionist

works of Jackson Pollock.

The British artist, Bridget Riley, was born in 1931in

London. Her art from the second half of the twentieth

century offers many examples of optical illusion. One

beautiful work is done in the traditional black and

white—Movement in Squares (1961). In this piece, Riley

shows that a simple geometric pattern of checkerboard

squares when arranged in a compelling way can create

motion and illusion. A colorful piece, Shadow Play

(1990), uses many colors to create a geometric pattern

that inspires strong emotions in the observer. For exam-

ple, the use of bright and warm colors creates a happy

feeling. Riley notably represented her country in the

Venice Biennale (1968) and became the first British con-

temporary painter and female to garner the Biennale’s

International Prize in painting.

04

Fashion

Op Art Fashion by Courreges 1965

WHAT IS OP ART

THE WORLD OF OP ART

LONDON, United Kingdom — Fashion’s artist collabo-

rations go back to the closely coupled creative worlds

of Paul Poiret and Raoul Dufy, and Elsa Schiaparelli and

Salvador Dalí. But in the intervening years, much has

changed. There is a world of difference between those

early twentieth century collaborations — tiny couture

collections destined for wealthy bohemians — and their

contemporary equivalents: multi-billion dollar luxury

goods houses collaborating with blue-chip artists to

translate their work into industrially manufactured and

globally distributed products.

The current issue of W magazine features an optical-

ly-challenging image of George Clooney in a suit and

set customised by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.

The actor’s salt and pepper hair is echoed in a flurry of

uneven monochrome dots proliferating like a cartoon

rash across every surface of the image – dots that seem

to have become the most immediately recognisable

shorthand for the concept ‘contemporary art’ in the

popular imagination. Clooney’s customised suit may be

Giorgio Armani, but to the rest of the world, Kusama’s

infinite rippling polka dots are associated with another

brand entirely; one which, in 2012, was largely responsi-

ble for the artist’s promotion from art world prominence

to pop cultural ubiquity: Louis Vuitton.

George Clooney in W Magazine’s “The Artist Issue”,Emma Summerton

06

WHAT IS OP ART

One of Marc Jacobs and Yves Carcelle’s most significant

achievements at Louis Vuitton was the introduction of

major artist collaborations into the brand’s DNA, help-

ing (along with Jacobs’ fashion collections and overall

sense of showmanship) to transform what was a staid

French luggage label, whose signature monogram was

increasingly associated with cheap knock-offs, into one

of the most valuable fashion brands in the world.

Jacobs’ first artistic collaborations for Vuitton were with

the New York-based fashion designer Stephen Sprouse

(responsible for the monogram’s graffiti makeover,

which appeared on everything from leather goods to

scarves to sneakers) and the London-based designer

and illustrator Julie Verhoeven: both creative individuals

already firmly connected to the fashion world.

But in 2003, Jacobs and Vuitton launched a far more

ambitious product collaboration with the artist Takashi

Murakami. Then aged 40, the Japanese artist had

already been the subject of prominent solo exhibitions

on three continents. Known for his determined manipu-

lation of cultural boundaries — between high and low,

ancient and modern, Orient and Occident — Muraka-

mi’s fresh, youthful, pop-inflected reworkings of the

monogram, which continued until 2007, and helped to

cement Vuitton’s new image.

A collaboration the following year with the American

appropriation artist Richard Prince was launched with

a runway show in which bags bearing Prince’s irreverent

takes on the monogram were presented by sexy nurses,

inspired by the artist’s Nurse paintings. Jacobs has also

recently worked on a runway show and window designs

with the French conceptual artist Daniel Buren.

But working with artists requires a delicate touch, espe-

cially when they are less established. “When there’s too

much marketing and emphasis on product, the artist can

suffer,” explains Mikaeloff. “We have to be careful, par-

ticularly with a young artist, that it doesn’t affect their

career. It has happened that there has been a collabo-

ration and you take a look at the artist afterwards and

realise that suddenly they’re not getting so many gallery

shows. You have to find a way to work with artists that is

not going to compete with the art market.”

It is notable that of the artists who have recently given

Louis Vuitton a burst of energy, Richard Prince is 64,

Daniel Buren is 75 and Kusama is 84; none have any-

thing left to prove to the art world in terms of intent or

integrity. “Kusama was already a highly respected artist

in art world circles with a major retrospective underway

at four of the world’s most important art museums,”

explains Scott Wright. “What this collaboration did was

make her into an international household name.”

Fashion may often be accused of dining on the juice

of youth, but, certainly, one key to mutually beneficial

collaborations with artists seems to be a taste for rather

more mature talents.

07

THE WORLD OF OP ART

Not since the 1920s had the way people dressed changed

so radically. In the mid 1960s, thanks to a convergence

of music, film, fashion and social change, the mod look

blasted out of London, with the boutiques of Kings Road

and Carnaby Street at the epicentre of the scene.

For the first time in history young people had other

options than to dress like their parents. Up until then

clothes for young women were known as Juniors or

Misses – a watered down version of adult clothes.

The sixties changed all that when young people started

making the clothes they wanted to wear, clothes that

completely excluded their parents’ generation. The mod

look was about looking forward to the future: sharp,

bold, minimalist – modernist.

Mary Quant said of this time in her biography that she

wanted ‘young people to have a fashion of their own,

absolutely 20th century fashion’.

The monochrome geometric prints of Op Art perfectly

complemented the bold shapes of the mod look, which

are perfectly parodied in William Klein’s 1966 film Qui

etes-vous Polly Maggoo?

The sharp five point Vidal Sassoon haircut and the sim-

ple A line shift dresses by Andre Courreges and Pierre

Cardin soon entered the mass market, having been

quickly copied and mass reproduced thanks to the new

large scale availability of synthetic fabrics.

Op Art Fashion 1960s Mod girl and op art

The Fashion Revolution of the 1960s

08

Enri Mur Richard Ramos VanidadOp Art not Pop Art

Op Art Exploitation?

Although Pop Art was a separate movement, it is often

confused or combined with Op Art when discussing six-

ties fashion. Pop Art also had a huge influence on fashion

during the mid 1960s with the graphic work of Pop artists

such as Andy Warhol being printed onto clothing.

The most iconic example of art meeting fashion in the

1960s is Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian shift dress.

It was featured on the cover of French Vogue in September

1965; cheaper mass market copies inevitably followed.

Also not to be confused with Op Art: geometric styles

were usually made up of panels of fabric in boldly

contrasting colours such as black and white or bright pri-

mary colours juxtaposed. Op Art was all about the print.

Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely had polar opposite

views on the commercialisation of their work. While

Vasarely thought that art should be for everyone and

even collaborated with textile firms, Riley was dismayed

at seeing her original work co-opted for commercial use

without her permission.

In February 1965, Riley was being driven from the airport

to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Travelling up

Madison Avenue she saw in the shop windows row upon

row of dresses with designs lifted from her paintings. Riley

denounced the way her art was being “vulgarized in the

rag trade” and publicly expressed her ‘deep anger’ at the

commercialisation of one of her paintings by a New York

dress firm. The firm was producing dresses with a design

based on one of her paintings which was owned by the

director of the firm. She tried to sue for copyright infringe-

ment but was unsuccessful.

WHAT IS OP ART

09

THE WORLD OF OP ART

SculptureThe Op art movement was driven by artists who were







seemed to supply a style that was highly appropriate to

modern society.

Although Op can be seen as the successor to geometric

abstraction, its stress on illusion and perception suggests

that it might also have older ancestors. It may descend

from effects that were once popular with Old Masters,

such as trompe l’oeil (French: “deceive the eye”). Or

indeed from anamorphosis, the effect by which images

are contorted so that objects are only fully recognizable

when viewed from an oblique angle. Or, equally, Op may

simply be a child of modern decoration.

During its years of greatest success in the mid-1960s,

the movement was sometimes said to encompass a

wide range of artists whose interests in abstraction

had little to do with perception. Some, such as Joseph

Albers, who were often labeled as Op artists, dismissed

it. Yet the fact that the label could seem to apply to so

many artists demonstrates how important the nuances

of vision have been throughout modern art.

10

WHAT IS OP ART

11

THE WORLD OF OP ART

Farb-Licht-Zentrum, ZHdK

The Op art movement was driven by artists who were







seemed to supply a style that was highly appropriate

to modern society.

12

Op Art by Bridget Riley

Although Op can be seen as the successor to geometric

abstraction, its stress on illusion and perception suggests

that it might also have older ancestors. It may descend

from effects that were once popular with Old Masters,

such as trompe l’oeil (French: “deceive the eye”). Or

indeed from anamorphosis, the effect by which images

are contorted so that objects are only fully recognizable

when viewed from an oblique angle. Or, equally, Op may

simply be a child of modern decoration.

WHAT IS OP ART

13

THE WORLD OF OP ART

OP ART ‘’ METAL WALL SCULPTURE BY FONCHEN LORD at 1stdibs

During its years of greatest success in the mid-1960s,

the movement was sometimes said to encompass

a wide range of artists whose interests in abstraction

had little to do with perception. Some, such as Joseph

Albers, who were often labeled as Op artists, dismissed

it. Yet the fact that the label could seem to apply to

so many artists demonstrates how important the nuanc-

es of vision have been throughout modern art.

WHAT IS OP ART

THE WORLD OF OP ART

Victor Vasarely Op Art Sculpture France 1970s

In some respects, Op Art can be thought of as a devel-

opment from Kinetic Art. The question posed was how

to provide the viewer with an illusion of movement on a

static 2D surface. Exploitation of the fallibility of the eye

through the use of optical illusion provided Op Artists

with the answer.

The use of repetition of pattern and line, often in high

contrast black and white was one way Op Artists used

to create this illusion of movement. The overall optical

effect of the technique leads the viewer to see flashing

and vibration, or alternatively swelling or warping.

Pattern, Line, Optical Illusion and ‘Movement’

16

WHAT IS OP ART

Victor Vasarely Op Art Sculpture 6

17

THE WORLD OF OP ART

History

Founded in Germany in 1919 by Walter Gropius the

Bauhaus school brought together artists, architects,

and designers in an extraordinary conversation about

the nature of art in the age of technology. This was a

school of Architecture and Applied Arts, its disciplined

style based on the fundamental geometric shapes of

the cube, the rectangle and the circle. The revolution-

ary Bahaus teaching method replaced the traditional

pupil-teacher relationship with the idea of a community

of artists working together.

Despite being shut down by the Nazis in 1933, Bahaus

lived on with other schools starting in the US and Budapest.

Its influence on European and American art was immense

and it was certainly one of the strongest influences on Op

Art. Victor Vasarely, the ‘father’ of Op Art trained in the

Budapest Bahaus school.

18

Origins – Bahaus – Geometric Form

Walter Gropius, Bauhaus Master Houses in Dessau.1925-1926

Poster for Bahaus Exhibition Weimar, Germany 1923

19

WHAT IS OP ART

THE WORLD OF OP ART

Jean Tinguely, Le Cyclograveur, 1959

WHAT IS OP ART

THE WORLD OF OP ART

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Op-Art of Vasarely

Origins – Kinetic Art – Movement

Starting in 1913 with Duchamp’s ‘Bicycle wheel’ and pop-

ularised in Russia in the 1920s by artists such as Naum

Gabo, Kinetic Art concerned itself with the creation of

real or illusory movement. Approaches to the discipline

were diverse. Sculptors such as Jean Tinguely used all

sorts of materials, sometimes collecing scrap to construct

moving sculptures. For instance, ‘Cyclograveur’ (shown

right) invited the viewer to climb on the saddle and pedal

to make it move. Another scuplptor, Alexander Calder,

eliminated the conventional pedestal and hung his con-

structions from the ceiling on long rods, so they became

known as mobiles.

Kinetic Art primarily took the form of sculpture and was

at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, with artists such

as Calder and George Rickey leading the way. Clearly

sculpture lent itself to movement; the question was how

to create movement on a 2D surface.

WHAT IS OP ART

23

THE WORLD OF OP ART

Victor Vasarely - Lessons - TES

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WHAT IS OP ART

Victor Vasarely Cube Sculpture

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THE WORLD OF OP ART

WHY IS OP ART SO DIFFERENT?ElementArtists have been intrigued by the nature of perception

and by optical effects and illusions for many centuries.

They have often been a central concern of art, just as

much as themes drawn from history or literature. But in

the 1950s these preoccupations, allied to new interests

in technology and psychology, blossomed into a move-

ment. Op, or Optical, art typically employs abstract

patterns composed with a stark contrast of foreground

and background - often in black and white for maximum

contrast - to produce effects that confuse and excite the

eye. Initially, Op shared the field with Kinetic art - Op

artists being drawn to virtual movement, Kinetic artists

attracted by the possibility of real motion. Both styles

were launched with Le Mouvement, a group exhibition

at Galerie Denise Rene in 1955. It attracted a wide

international following, and after it was celebrated with

a survey exhibition in 1965, The Responsive Eye, at

the Museum of Modern Art in New York, it caught the

public’s imagination and led to a craze for Op designs

in fashion and the media. To many, it seemed the

perfect style for an age defined by the onward march

of science, by advances in computing, aerospace, and

television. But art critics were never so supportive of it,

attacking its effects as gimmicks, and today it remains

tainted by those dismissals.

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Victor Vasarely Zebras white on black

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WHY IS OP ART SO DIFFERENT

THE WORLD OF OP ART

28

Traditional Perspective and ‘Depth’

Starting in 1913 with Duchamp’s ‘Bicycle wheel’ and pop-

ularised in Russia in the 1920s by artists such as Naum

Gabo, Kinetic Art concerned itself with the creation of

real or illusory movement. Approaches to the discipline

were diverse. Sculptors such as Jean Tinguely used all

sorts of materials, sometimes collecing scrap to construct

moving sculptures. For instance, ‘Cyclograveur’ (shown

right) invited the viewer to climb on the saddle and pedal

to make it move. Another scuplptor, Alexander Calder,

eliminated the conventional pedestal and hung his con-

structions from the ceiling on long rods, so they became

known as mobiles.

Kinetic Art primarily took the form of sculpture and was

at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, with artists such

as Calder and George Rickey leading the way. Clearly

sculpture lent itself to movement; the question was how

to create movement on a 2D surface.


29

THE WORLD OF OP ART

With Op Art came an acute awareness of the work done

on the science of colour and colour theory. Colours appear

to change depending on their proximity to other colours.

For example, a red shape on a white ground appears much

lighter than the same red shape on a black ground. Colours

opposite each other on the colour wheel when placed

next to each other seem to be of different intensity than

when placed some distance apart. Those colours in the cool

range – blues, purples & greens – are recessive and seem

to sink back on the surface whilst the warm colours – red,

orange and yellow particularly – are ’emergent’.

The manipulation of colours to achieve apparent movement

is endless – some colours placed next to neutral greys

appear to create new colours – an echo of a colour, an after

image, and so on. The color relationships in play are known

as simultaneous contrast, successive contrast, and reverse

contrast (or assimilation).

30

Color Theory and the Science of Color

Color


31

Gene Davis Firebox 1964

THE WORLD OF OP ART

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Optical illusion - azul


33

Two colors, side by side, interact with one another and

change our perception accordingly. The effect of this

interaction is called simultaneous contrast. Since we rarely

see colors in isolation, simultaneous contrast affects our

sense of the color that we see. For example, red and blue

flowerbeds in a garden are modified where they border

each other: the blue appears green and the red, orange.

(This is explained below.) The real colors are not altered;

only our perception of them changes. This effect has

a simple scientific explanation that we will uncover.

Simultaneous Contrast

THE WORLD OF OP ART

Simultaneous contrast is most intense when the two colors

are complementary colors. Complementary colors are

pairs of colors, diametrically opposite on a color circle: as

seen in Newton’s color circle, red and green, and blue and

yellow. Yellow complements blue; mixed yellow and blue

lights generate white light.

Impressionist interest in color and light is influenced in

part by the research of scientists like Michel Chevreul.

Specifically, the idea that an object of any given color will

cast a shadow tinged with that of its complementary color

and tinting neighboring colors in the same manner influ-

ences Impressionists. This theory was already known to

earlier painters, such as Eugène Delacroix. A primary color

such as red has green (the combination of the other two

primaries) as its complementary. Similarly, blue has orange

and yellow has purple as a complementary color.

Simultaneous contrast in sight is readily understood.

Consider an intense beam of blue light, surrounded

by white light, striking our retinas. Where the blue light

strikes, the blue cones will be stimulated, overloaded

and fatigued. The horizontal cells that link the blue cones

will cause blue cones, outside of but close to the blue

beam, to also become fatigued. In the surround of the

blue beam where the white light falls, the blue receptors

will be fatigued and the white light will appear to our

brain as yellow. (Recall that blue light plus yellow light

equals white light.) Simultaneous contrast causes the

white around the blue to seem yellow. Similarly, white

light around a yellow beam will seem blue. Such effects

are simple to demonstrate with a light beam and some

colored filters. Finally, for blue alongside yellow, the blue

makes the yellow more yellow and the yellow makes the

blue more blue. Simultaneous contrast has its greatest

effect for adjacent complementary colors.

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Tony Digital Art & Design


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THE WORLD OF OP ART

FunctionThe phrase ‘Op Art’ was coined around the time of the

famous ‘Responsive Eye’ exhibition, with ‘Op’ of course

referring to optics – the physical and psychological pro-

cess of vision. Work on the mathematical and scientific

basis of perception had been ongoing since the 1800s,

with much progress having been made in the 1950s and

1960s leading to a resurgence of interest in the field.

The Op Artists, through their study of the science behind

how the eye and brain work together to perceive color,

light, depth, perspective, size, shape, and motion, were

able to put into practice the scientific work around visual

perception. Op Art exploits the functional relationship

between the eye’s retina (the organ that ‘sees’ patterns)

and the brain (the organ that interprets patterns). Certain

visual stimuli can cause confusion between these two

organs, resulting in the perception of irrational optical

phenomena, something the Op Artists used to full effect.

36


The Hermann Grid (1870s) Ludimar Hermann

Optical Illusions: A Gallery of Visual Tricks

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THE WORLD OF OP ART

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Photo by Marta Cerdà on Behance

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THE WORLD OF OP ART

Op Art and The Science of Perception

Scientists did not invent the vast majority of visual

illusions. Rather they are the products of artists who

have used their insights into the workings of the human

eyes and brain to create illusions in their artwork. Long

before visual science existed as a formal discipline,

artists had devised techniques to “trick” the brain into

thinking that a flat canvas was three-dimensional or that

a series of brushstrokes in a still life was in fact a bowl

of luscious fruit. Thus, the visual arts have sometimes

preceded the visual sciences in the discovery of fun-

damental vision principles through the application of

methodical—though perhaps more intuitive—research

techniques. In this sense, art, illusions and visual science

have always been implicitly linked.

It was only with the birth of the op art (for “optical art”)

movement that visual illusions became a recognized art

form. The movement arose simultaneously in Europe

and the U.S. in the 1960s, and in 1964 Time magazine

coined the term “op art.” Op art works are abstract,

and many consist only of black-and-white lines and pat-

terns. Others use the interaction of contrasting colors to

create a sense of depth or movement.

40

THE WORLD OF OP ART

via iindex March 30, 2013 Op Art 1 by Vinnie14

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This style became hugely popular after the Museum of

Modern Art in New York City held an exhibition in 1965

called “The Responsive Eye.” In it, op artists explored

many aspects of visual perception, such as the relations

among geometric shapes, variations on “impossible” fig-

ures that could not occur in reality, and illusions involving

brightness, color and shape perception. But “kinetic,”

or motion, illusions drew particular interest. In these eye

tricks, stationary patterns give rise to the powerful but

subjective perception of (illusory) motion.

This article includes several works of art in which objects

that are perfectly still appear to move. Moreover, they

demonstrate that research in the visual arts can result in

important findings about the visual system. Victor Vasarely,

the Hungarian-French founder of the op art movement,

once said, “In basic research, intellectual rigor and senti-

mental freedom necessarily alternate.”

Op artists have created some of the illusions featured

here; vision scientists honoring the op art tradition have

created others. But all of them make it obvious that in

op art, the link between art and illusory perception is an

artistic style in and of itself.

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THE WORLD OF OP ART

Victor Vasarely, Okta, 1985

44

FAMOUS OP ART ARTISITSVictor VasarelyVictor Vasarely was a Hungarian-French artist credited with

having created the Op Art movement, which Bridget Riley

and Yaacov Agam would come to follow. Vasarely’s paint-

ings and sculpture utilized geometrical shapes and colorful

graphics to create illusions of spatial depth on two-di-

mensional surfaces. This abstract method of painting, also

known as Kineticism, borrowed from a diverse range of in-

fluences, including Bauhaus principles, Wassily Kandinsky’s

abstraction, and the Constructivist movement, which had a

particularly significant impact on Vasarely’s practice. Born

Vásárhelyi Gyozo on April 9, 1906 in Pécs, Hungary, the

artist originally studied medicine, but switched to painting

after two years. Vasarely enrolled in the Hungarian branch

of the Bauhaus (Muhely) in Budapest in the late 1920s.

After settling in Paris in 1930, Vasarely worked as a graphic

artist and developed his signature abstract aesthetic. He

lived and worked in the city until his death at the age of 90

on March 15, 1997.

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THE WORLD OF OP ART

Victor Vasarely, Phoenix Constellation, 1987

Victor Vasarely, Andromeda, 1978

Every form is a base for colour, every colour is the attribute of a form.

-Victor Vasarely

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THE WORLD OF OP ART

Vasarely was born in Pécs and grew up in Pöstyén (now

Piešťany, Slovakia) 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 Bortn-

yik’s private art school called Műhely (lit. “Workshop”,

in existence until 1938), then widely recognized as

Budapest’s centre 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. In Budapest, he worked for a ball-bear-

ings company in accounting and designing advertising

posters. Vasarely became a graphic designer and

a poster artist during the 1930s combining patterns

and organic images with each other.

Life and work

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Victor Vasarely, Kroa A, ca. 1968


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THE WORLD OF OP ART

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 centre 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 sculp-

ture 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.

1929-1944: Early graphics: Vasarely experimented with

textural effects, perspective, shadow and light. His early

graphic period resulted 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 cubistic,

futuristic, expressionistic, symbolistic and surrealistic

paintings without developing a unique style. After-

wards, he said he was on the wrong track. He exhibited

his works in the gallery of Denise René (1946) and the

gallery René Breteau (1947). Writing the introduction to

the catalogue, Jacques Prévert placed Vasarely among

the surrealists. 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.

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Victor Vasarely - 1995


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1947-1951: Developing geometric abstract art (optical

art): Finally, Vasarely found his own style. The overlap-

ping developments 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 Breton coast at Belle Île inspired

him to the Belles-Isles works. Since 1948, Vasarely usu-

ally spent his summer months in Gordes in Provence-

Alpes-Côte d’Azur. 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 im-

ages, superimposed acrylic glass 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. Trib-

ute to Malevitch, a ceramic wall picture of 100 m² adorns

the University of Caracas, Venezuela which he co-de-

signed in 1954 with the architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva,

is a major work of this period.

Fondation Victor Vasarely à Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, PACA

54

Kinetic art flourished and works by Vasarely, Calder,

Duchamp, Man Ray, Soto, Tinguely were exhibited at the

Denise René gallery under the title Le Mouvement (the

motion). Vasarely published his Yellow Manifest. Building

on the research of constructivist and Bauhaus pioneers,

he postulated that visual kinetics (plastique cinétique)

relied on the perception of the viewer who is considered

the sole creator, playing with optical illusions.

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 art, 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 Art 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 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 muse-

um 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 in-

stalled 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. In 1982 154

specially created serigraphs were taken into space by the

cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chrétien on board the French-So-

viet 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 Musee en Herbe in 2012.

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Awards-1964: Guggenheim Prize

-1970: French Chevalier de L’Ordre de la Légion d’honneur

-Art Critics Prize, Brussels

-Gold Medal at the Milan Triennale

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Riley was born in London in 1931. Her father, John Fisher

Riley, originally from Yorkshire, was a printer. Her grandfa-

ther was an officer in the Army. In 1938 he relocated the

printing business, together with his family, to Lincolnshire

At the beginning of World War II Riley’s father was mo-

bilized from the Honourable Artillery Company and sent

to the Far East. Bridget Riley, together with her mother

and sister Sally, moved to a cottage in Cornwall. The

cottage, not far from the sea near Padstow, was shared

with an aunt who was a former student at Goldsmiths’

College, London. Primary education came in the form

of irregular talks and lectures by non-qualified or retired

teachers. She attended Cheltenham Ladies’ College and

then studied art at Goldsmiths College (1949–52), and

later at the Royal College of Art (1952–55).[6] There her

fellow students included artists Peter Blake, Geoffrey

Harcourt (the retired painter, also noted for his many well

known chair designs) and Frank Auerbach. In 1955 Riley

graduated with a BA degree.

Between 1956 and 1958 she nursed her father, who had

been involved in a serious car crash, and herself suffered

a breakdown. After this she worked in a glassware shop

and also, for a while, taught children. She eventually

joined the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, as an

illustrator, where she worked part-time until 1962. The

large Whitechapel Gallery exhibition of Jackson Pollock,

in the winter of 1958, was to have a major impact on her.

Bridget Louise Riley

Early life and education

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Bridget Rley by Ida Kar

Early in her career, Riley worked as an art teacher from

1957-58 at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Harrow (now

known as Sacred Heart Language College). Later she

worked at the Loughborough School of Art (1959), Horn-

sey College of Art, and Croydon College of Art (1962–64).

In 1961, with partner Peter Sedgley, she visited the

Vaucluse plateau in the South of France, and acquired

a derelict farm which would eventually be transformed

into a studio. Back in London, in the spring of 1962, Riley

was given her first solo exhibition, by Victor Musgrave of

Studio One.

In 1968 Riley, with Peter Sedgley and the journalist Peter

Townsend, created the artists’ organization SPACE (Space

Provision Artistic Cultural and Educational), with the goal

of providing artists large and affordable studio space.

Her early work was figurative with a semi-impressionist

style. Between 1958 and 1959 her work at the advertising

agency showed her adoption of a style of painting based

on the pointillist technique. Around 1960 she began to

develop her signature Op Art style consisting of black

and white geometric patterns that explore the dynamism

of sight and produce a disorienting effect on the eye. In

the summer of 1960 she toured Italy with mentor Maurice

de Sausmarez, and the two visited the Venice Biennale

with its large exhibition of Futurist works.

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Bridget Riley

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La pionnière britannique de l’Op’art

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Bridget Riley, Hesitate, 1964

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Bridget Riley, C, 1968


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Cataract 3, 1967, PVA on canvas

For me nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces.

-Bridget Riley

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Riley’s mature style, developed during the 1960s, was

influenced by a number of sources. It was during this

time that Riley began to paint the black and white

works for which she is best known. They present a great

variety of geometric forms that produce sensations of

movement or colour. In the early 1960s, her works were

said to induce sensation in viewers as varied as seasick

and sky diving. From 1961 to 1964 she worked with the

contrast of black and white, occasionally introducing

tonal scales of grey. Works in this style comprised her

first 1962 solo show at Musgrave’s Gallery One, as well

as numerous subsequent shows. For example, in Fall,

a single perpendiculars curve is repeated to create a

field of varying optical frequencies.

Work

Visually, these works relate to many concerns of the

period: a perceived need for audience participation (this

relates them to the Happenings, for which the period is

famous), challenges to the notion of the mind-body duality

which led Aldous Huxley to experiment with hallucino-

genic drugs; concerns with a tension between a scientific

future which might be very beneficial or might lead to a

nuclear war; and fears about the loss of genuine individual

experience in a Brave New World. Her paintings have,

since 1961, been executed by assistants from her own

endlessly edited studies.

Riley began investigating colour in 1967, the year in which

she produced her first stripe painting. Following a major

retrospective in the early 1970s, Riley began travelling

extensively. After a trip to Egypt in the early 1980s, where

she was inspired by colourful hieroglyphic decoration,

Riley began to explore colour and contrast.In some works,

lines of colour are used to create a shimmering effect,

while in others the canvas is filled with tessellating pat-

terns. Typical of these later colourful works is Shadow Play.

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Public collections-Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

-Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

-Museum of Modern Art, New York

-Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

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Jean-Pierre Vasarely Yvaral, Salvador Dali, Serigraph

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Yvaral, son of Victor Vasarely, was a French artist known

for his contributions to optical art, kinetic art, and

numerical art. His works feature bold colors, impressions

of movement, and vibrating patterns. He employed

algorithms and computer programming to manipulate

a number of his works, including his series of portraits

depicting famous figures such as Marilyn Monroe. Aside

from acrylic painting, Yvaral delved into various other

mediums such as sculpture, tapestry, mixed media,

and the collage.

Jean-Pierre Vasarely

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Yvaral studied graphic art and publicity at the École des

Arts Appliqués in Paris between 1950 and 1953. In 1960,

Yvaral co-founded the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visual

(GRAV) with Julio Le Parc, François Morellet, Francisco

Sobrino, Horacio Garcia Rossi and Joel Stein, seeking to

develop a coherent abstract visual language composed

of simple geometric elements.

In 1975 he coined the phrase ‘Numerical Art’ to describe

artwork composed (or programmed) according to numer-

ical rules or algorithms. From this time onwards he used

computers to digitally process and manipulate images,

although the final images were always hand painted. He

used this technique to produce several series of portraits

starting from instantly recognisable images, such as the

face of Marilyn Monroe, and processing them to the

point where they become abstract compositions, while

the original image remains recognisable.

Life and work

72

Horizon Jaune Structure (Horizon Yellow Structure), c. 1975

Structure Cubique B, 1973


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Jean Pierre Vasarely Yvaral, Interference C

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Portrait du peintre Jean-Pierre Vasarely dit Yvaral, circa 1970. - Photographs of Celebrities


Yvaral studied graphic art and publicity at the Ecole des

Arts Appliqu (School of Applied Art) in Paris. There, he

began experimenting with geometrical abstract art and

made his first completed works with the movement in

1955. In 1960 he co–founded Le Group de Recherche

d’Art Visuel with Le Parc, Morellet, Sobrino with which he

exhibited throughout the world until 1968.

Yvaral held his first one-man exhibition at the Howard

Wise Gallery, New York in 1966. By the end of the 1960s

he was making many paintings and screenprints with vig-

orous colour interactions and geometrical compositions.

His work focussed on producing optical acceleration

effects that suggested movement, projection and re-

cession. He aimed to create a visual language based on

simple codifiable and programmed elements. Through

his search for a concise geometric digital vocabulary, he

addressed our notions of space and time through the

displacement of the spectator.

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Solo Exhibits-Op-Art Gallery - Esslingen, Germany

-Howard Wise Gallery - New York

-Ricke Gallery - Kassel, Germany

-Tobies and Silex Gallery - Cologne

-Hagen Museum - Germany

-Hotel de Ville de Paris - Retrospective

-F.I.A.C. Grand Palais - Paris

-Pavillon des Arts - Paris

-Circle Gallery - New York - Los Angeles - San Francisco - Chicago - Houston - Dallas

-Mitsukoski Museum - Tokyo

-Redfern Gallery - London

-Denise Rene Gallery - Paris

-Semika Huber Gallery - Zurich

-”Artec 90” - Nagoya, Japan - Selected to represent France

-Govaerts Gallery - Brussels

-Fine Arts Museum - Caracas

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the world of op art

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