Remembering Victor Vasarely, the father of optical art on his birth anniversary

A Hungarian French artist, Victor Vasarely considered to be the father of the Optical Art movement was born on April 9, 1906. He distinguished himself from contemporary art with the creation of optical art. Through his art, the artist created compelling illusions of spatial depth, utilizing geometric shapes and colourful graphics as seen in his work Vega-Nor (1969).

He’s the designer of the automobile manufacturer Renault’s famous logo. He was even hired by David Bowie to create the cover art for his album Space Oddity.

After working as a graphic designer in Paris in 1944 he experimented with cubistic, futuristic, symbolistic, expressionistic and surrealistic paintings and later on in 1947 he found his own style and went on to produce art and sculpture using optical illusion.

His work Zebra in the year 1938, while he was working as a graphic designer in Paris, is considered to be one of the earliest examples of Op art.

He was first to realize that Kinetic Art did not have to move, and during 1951-55 he created an extraordinary series of paintings and sculptures using geometrical effects to suggest motion within static form.

He died in the year 1997 on 15^th March and left behind a legacy of 300 paintings, drawings and Pop Art objects which are being exhibited at Centre Pompidou, in Paris and this showcases him as an innovator of 20th-century abstract art.

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