Born in Pécs in 1906 as Győző Csiszár, he later changed his name to Győző Vásárhelyi, and then Victor Vasarely. He is regarded as the father of Op Art, an abstract visual art style that uses geometric patterns and high-contrast colors to create optical illusions of movement, depth, and vibration. Although Vasarely spent most of his life in France, his Hungarian identity was always present in the deeper layers of his visual sensibility and artistic thinking. It’s there not only in the titles of his artworks but also in the elements of Hungarian folk ornamentation which emerge in their compositional rhythms and geometric structures.
The exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, which coincidentally celebrates its 120th anniversary this year, comprises 140 works supported by documents, previously unseen photographs and films. It draws on the Budapest collection of the artist’s work, as well as pieces from the Vasarely Museum in Pécs, the Fondation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence, and private collections.
The art is presented in five thematically and chronologically arranged units that allow visitors to follow his creative journey in a conceptual arc through abstraction to a concern with movement. This progression also allows insight into Vasarely’s ambition to enable art to shape everyday environments, architecture and urban space.
The exhibition is co-curated by Veronika Pócs, curator at Budapest’s wonderful Vasarely Museum, and Mónika Zombori, art historian and museum curator at the Department of International Art After 1800 in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. Zombori’s research area includes artists such as Vasarely who lived and worked abroad. She explained why Vasarely and the exhibition are so important.
“Vasarely’s career shows how an artist from Budapest could become a major figure in international modern art,” Zombori explains. “There’s probably no other Hungarian artist whose work is represented by dedicated museums in three different European cities. The anniversary is a good opportunity to look at his work from a new perspective, to reconnect him with Hungarian cultural history, and to participate in the broader rediscovery of his oeuvre that has taken place through several major exhibitions over the past decade,” she adds.
Zombori and Pócs were keen not just to present the most important periods of Vasarely’s career; they wanted to “show the ideas behind the artworks, not just their visual effects.” So, the exhibition follows Vasarely’s development as a visionary thinker, as well as an artist.
I’m conscious that my knowledge of Vasarely only skims the surface. I know, for instance, that one of his artworks was used on the cover of David Bowie’s 1969 “Space Oddity” album, but that’s about it. I asked Zombori how Vasarely’s work is most often interpreted and what she thought of that.
“Most people know Vasarely as the father of Op Art and associate him with optical illusions and geometric patterns,” she says. “His work is mainly seen as visual experiments. This perception has been particularly strong since the landmark exhibition ‘The Responsive Eye’ at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965, which made Op Art a worldwide phenomenon. It’s understandable, because his images are visually striking and immediately recognizable,” she notes.
“But, this is only part of the story. Vasarely was also interested in architecture, design, urban planning and the social role of art. He wanted to create a universal visual language that could reach a wide audience,” Zombori continues. “At the same time, his earlier and less well-known works are equally fascinating. His experiments with graphic design, abstraction, perception and visual structure reveal how he gradually developed the ideas that later led to Op Art. We highlight all these different aspects of his work.”
For her, the most fascinating aspect of Vasarely’s work is his interest in visual perception. “I admire how he combined artistic creativity with scientific curiosity. My favorite object in the exhibition is “Presentoir,” a mechanized showcase-display system he conceived in the 1970s. It was designed to present a large part of his oeuvre in a compact and accessible form. Containing 21 graphic works, it perfectly reflects Vasarely’s ambition to make art more accessible and reproducible. I find it fascinating because it’s both an artwork and a technological device.”
This is the first time “Presentoir” has been exhibited in Hungary. Zombori and Pócs were able to include it in the exhibition thanks to a loan from the Fondation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence.
Vasarely’s interest in perception, geometry, the relationship between art and technology and the idea of art reaching beyond the museum is highly relevant for contemporary art. Zombori hopes that “Vasarely will be remembered not only for his iconic optical images but also for the questions he asked. He was interested in how we see, how visual information is processed and how art can reach people outside the traditional museum audience. In many ways, these questions feel even more relevant in today’s image-saturated world than they did in his own time.”
You can find out more about the exhibition at szepmuveszeti.hu. If you’re keen for more Vasarely, head across town to “Kinetic Visions: Nicolas Schöffer and Victor Vasarely in Dialogue” at the Hungarian National Gallery. Later in the fall, when the Vasarely Museum Budapest reopens, visitors will be able for the first time in Budapest to see an exhibition dedicated to Claire Vasarely, the artist’s wife and creative partner.
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of July 3, 2026.
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