Jewish artist: Victor Vasarely and his Bauhaus influence which is 100 years old today

Victor Vasarely (1906 Pecs – Hungary – 1997 Paris) is his Jewish artists, his influence of the Bauhaus which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year in Tel Aviv.

This year’s exhibition “Vasarely, le partage des formes (Vasarely, the sharing of forms) was held at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

By observing his itinerary as a visual artist, we notice that this Hungarian, now Parisian, is the creator of optical art.

The influence of the Bauhaus, which he knew in Hungary, will be considerable in his work. This school, from which Marcel Breuer (Pecs 1902 – New York 1981) was going to draw inspiration, attracted me in particular: it is an artistic current, concerning architecture, Design and Movement. The Bauhaus school was closed by the Nazis in 1933: a handful of Jewish students left for Palestine. Marcel Breuer’s collaborator was Guntha Stölzl, married to the Israeli architect Arieh Sharon.

I wanted to pay tribute to Victor Vasarely in search of a new identity, his last major exhibition in Paris, dating back to 1963.

Victor Vasarely inspired by Naum Gabo (1890 Briansk, Russia – 1977 Waterbury – U.S.A.) and his brother Anton Pevsner (1884 Belarus – 1962 Paris) will refine his research on “Op – Art”. As described by Yuri Slezkine (American historian born in the USSR in 1956) in the “Jewish Century“, the first kinetic sculpture created by Naum Gabo in 1920, is a steel rod, really agitating.

 

History of Art: Kinetic and Optical Arts.

The artist moved to Paris in 1930 to live with a landlord, Mr Pic, with the financial help of André Weil, brother of one of his fellow students at the Budapest High School, where Victor obtained his baccalaureate in 1925.

Employed by a printer in Montrouge, he met the Hungarian sculptor Etienne Béothy (1897 – Paris 1961), as well as his wife Anna Béothy – Steiner (1902 Austria – Hungary – 1985 Paris), also a painter.

During an exhibition project, Vasarely met André Bloc (Algiers 1896 – New Delhi 1966). André Bloc exhibits “La Tapisserie Structure” at the Galerie Denise René, this work dates from 1956, woven by the Tabard factory in Aubusson: Structure.

Photo of the Tapestry Structure]

© https://www.cite-tapisserie.fr/fr/ressources-th%C3%A9matiques/la-tapisserie-le-mur-et-larchitecte/structure-dapr%C3%A8s-andr%C3%A9-bloc

In 1951, the architect, artist and critic André Bloc, who was close to the Denise René gallery, founded the Espace Group in Paris and planned to produce his first kinetic works.

Source: http://mediation.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources/ENS-cinetique/ENS-cinetique.html

The death of Henri Matisse, on November 3, 1954, affected Vasarely, whom he had placed very high in his personal Pantheon.

http://www.encyclopedie.picardie.fr/Stein-Leo-Gertrude-Michael-et.html

Peter Kassowitz, born in Budapest in 1938, was interested in the work of Victor Vasarely: the Hungarian Jewish director devoted an 8-minute documentary to it in 1960. Peter Kassowitz‘s film begins with a report on the Vasarely exhibition at the Galerie Denise René. The director lingers on a Spirale which evokes Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1899 – 1980) released in cinemas shortly before. Peter Kassovitz, from this short film becomes now famous.

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