Victor Vasarely

Victor Vasarely (1906-1997), was a Hungarian–French artist, who is widely accepted as the leader of the op art (optical art) movement.

In 1925 Vasarely took up medical studies. In 1927, he abandoned medicine to learn traditional academic painting at the private Podolini-Volkmann Academy. In 1928/1929, he enrolled at a private art school called Műhely, 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 Budapest, he worked for a ball-bearings 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.

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). After the Second World War, he opened an atelier in Arcueil, a suburb about 10 kilometers from the centre of Paris. In 1961, he finally settled in Annet-sur-Marne.

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.