Inauguration of the Vasarely museum in Gordes

Painter and designer of Hungarian descent, Victor Vasarely (1906-1997) is considered as the father of Op Art - optical art. In the 1930s while working in Paris as an advertising graphic artist, Vasarely began to take an interest in the deformation of lines and in series work. First figurative, these works would evolve towards abstraction, optical effects and geometric permutations to develop in the 1950s into the hypnotic undulations which characterised it.

He worked from then on the elaboration of a plastic alphabet, bringing up to date the utopia of an advanced universal language at the start of the century by abstract artists. Based on play between combinations of signs and colours, this method allowed him to develop his works infinitely. Vasarely would see in these "multiples", on which numerous collaborators worked, a form of social, reproducible pieces that were accessible to all. These kaleidoscopic images giving a troubling relief to flat surfaces were to achieve international success at the height of the psychedelic movement in the 1960s. Some would see in them an artistic translation of hallucinogenic visions tied to LSD.

And in Pompidou's France which was awakening to contemporary art, Vasarely created his foundation made up of the educational Museum of Gordes (1970-1996) and the architectonic centre in Aix en Provence (1976).