Victor Vasarely’s complex paintings and sculptures helped define the ethos of the Op art movement. The artist’s vibrant compositions feature a mix of rigidly geometric and more fluid forms which, when combined with monochromatic or diverse color palettes, produce the optical illusions that give Op art its name. Vasarely studied medicine at the University of Budapest before dropping out to embrace a career in visual art. His immersion in scientific methodology and objectivity informed his work, as did the theories of Josef Albers and Wassily Kandisnky. Vasarely exhibited widely during his lifetime in cities including New York, Paris, Cologne, Caracas, and Budapest, and his work belongs in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, among others.