Biography
Credited as the father of the Op Art movement, French-Hungarian artist Victor Vasarely is best known
for utilizing geometric shapes, colorful graphics and compelling illusions of spatial depth. Bauhaus design
principles and the Constructivism movement influenced his method of painting.
Born Vasdrhelyi Gyozo on April 9, 1906 in Pécs, Hungary, he briefly studied medicine before dedicating himself to painting. In the late 1920s, he enrolled at the Muhely Academy in Budapest, where the curriculum was largely based on Walter Gropius's Bauhaus school in Germany. After settling in Paris in 1930, Vasarely worked as a graphic artist while creating many proto-Op Art works. The artist experimented in a style based in Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism during the 1940s before arriving at his hallmark checkerboard works.