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
Műller (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. . . 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: •
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. Afterwards, 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
imaginaries (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 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 usually 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 images, 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 colors.
Tribute to Malevitch, a ceramic wall picture of adorns the
University of Caracas, Venezuela which he co-designed in 1954 with the architect
Carlos Raúl Villanueva, is a major work of this period. 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. radio headquarters in Paris, aluminium blinds with graphics and backlight, 1972 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. 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. == Legacy ==