Victor Vasarely (Pécs, Hungary, 1906 – Paris, 1997) is universally recognised as the father of Op Art — the movement that in the 1960s made visual perception itself the subject of painting. Hungarian by birth, he trained at the Műhely in Budapest — a private art school modelled on the Bauhaus — and moved to Paris in 1930, where he worked as a graphic designer, sharpening a feeling for sign and form that would shape his entire practice.
From the late 1940s he developed his definitive language: elementary geometric forms — circles, squares, rhombuses — arranged in grids that generate illusions of depth, vibration and movement on the flat surface. The cycles Vega, Folklore planétaire and Permutations deploy this visual alphabet in compositions of extraordinary coherence and chromatic range. His ambition was radical: a democratic, reproducible art capable of reaching everyone. In 1955 he participated in the landmark exhibition Le Mouvement at Galerie Denise René in Paris. In 1976 he founded the Fondation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence. His works are held at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, MoMA in New York and in museums worldwide.
