Basic Art Series: Victor Vasarely

Hungarian-French painter Victor Vasarely (1906-1997) was a precocious talent. His earliest surviving painting, a landscape done at age 12, baffled through its realism – an indication of the compelling illusions of spatial depth that would later define his dazzling universe. Inspired by the likes of Malevich and the Bauhaus school, Vasarely developed his own abstract-geometric visual language, exploring the relationship between pure form and pure color. Vasarely's experimentation with optical effects in the 1940s and '50s earned him a central role in the evolution of Op Art. By the late '50s and early '60s, he concentrated on the "democratization of art" by producing "multiples"-reasonably priced original works reproduced in large editions.

Vasarely's attempt to "destroy the completely obsolete myth of the unique, inimitable masterwork" was a tremendous contribution to art theory. To him, there was no place for hierarchical division into originals and reproductions, nor for distinction between fine and commercial art-"We cannot leave the enjoyment of art to an elite of connoisseurs forever," he declared. This redefinition of the artist's position and function in society marked a crucial first step in the Pop Art movement. Vasarely's boldly colorful and eye-popping paintings are instantly recognizable and remain entirely modern and relevant today. In this dependable introduction, we explore the makings of an artist ahead of his time.