Victor Vasarely
"Triptique"
Artist
Victor Vasarely
1906 Pécs/Ungarn - Paris 1997
Further information
Wir danken Pierre Vasarely für die freundlichen Hinweise bei der Katalogisierung dieses Werkes.
Exhibition
Gentofte, Tranegåeden Gentofte Kommune, Hellerup 1970, Nr. 15.
Provenance
Court Gallery, Copenhagen; private collection; Sotheby's, London 8 February 2007, lot 110; private collection, Germany.
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Description
• The duality of colour and form forms the basis of Vasarely's compositions
• Vasarely already took part in the first documenta in Kassel in 1955, as well as in the following documenta II (1959), documenta III (1964) and documenta IV (1968)
• From 24.10.2025 - 25 January 2026, works by Victor Vasarely and Marc Andrian, the "grand masters" of optical illusion, will be shown at the Albertina Modern in Vienna
Victor Vasarely, the founder of Op Art, is one of the most important artists of the 20th century. His works characterise the dazzling appearance of modernism in the 1960s and 1970s and are as much a part of the artistic avant-garde as they are of popular culture. Even as a commercial artist in the 1930s, Vasarely began to construct oscillations and rotations using lines and surfaces. He discovered that uniform structures that change their forms have a spatial effect. The present work from 1955 was created in a decisive year for his career. Together with role models such as Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder and other young artists such as Agam and Soto, he exhibited at the Galerie Denise René. On the occasion of this exhibition, Vasarely publishes "Le Manifeste jaune", which has become groundbreaking for his overall work. In it, he formulated the "unité plastique", or plastic unity, as the compositional basis for his work. For him, a successful composition should therefore always consist of two intertwined colours and forms. The present "Triptique" is a particularly fine example of the realisation of this compositional idea.
• Vasarely already took part in the first documenta in Kassel in 1955, as well as in the following documenta II (1959), documenta III (1964) and documenta IV (1968)
• From 24.10.2025 - 25 January 2026, works by Victor Vasarely and Marc Andrian, the "grand masters" of optical illusion, will be shown at the Albertina Modern in Vienna
Victor Vasarely, the founder of Op Art, is one of the most important artists of the 20th century. His works characterise the dazzling appearance of modernism in the 1960s and 1970s and are as much a part of the artistic avant-garde as they are of popular culture. Even as a commercial artist in the 1930s, Vasarely began to construct oscillations and rotations using lines and surfaces. He discovered that uniform structures that change their forms have a spatial effect. The present work from 1955 was created in a decisive year for his career. Together with role models such as Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder and other young artists such as Agam and Soto, he exhibited at the Galerie Denise René. On the occasion of this exhibition, Vasarely publishes "Le Manifeste jaune", which has become groundbreaking for his overall work. In it, he formulated the "unité plastique", or plastic unity, as the compositional basis for his work. For him, a successful composition should therefore always consist of two intertwined colours and forms. The present "Triptique" is a particularly fine example of the realisation of this compositional idea.