Graphic period

In 1929, he entered Muhëly, known as the Bauhaus school in Budapest. This school, created by Alexandre Bortnyik on the model of the Bauhaus in Dessau, took up the teachings given in Germany by artists such as Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Josef Albers. The influence of the Bauhaus teaching will be considerable in the work of Vasarely. Indeed, during this period, he was introduced to the trends of constructivism and discovered Abstract Art. It was then that he created his famous “blue study” and “green study” (1929) and that he also adhered to the theories aiming to promote a less individualistic and more communal art, an art adapted to the changes of the modern world and the world of industry.

At this time, the Hungarian government began to associate the various avant-garde movements with the progressive movement that was developing in politics. Like a number of his compatriots, Vasarely left Hungary and moved to Paris in 1930. He was hired by Havas, the advertising agency, as well as by Draeger, the famous printer of the time, as a designer. His work as a graphic designer in these agencies and later at Dewambez, allows him to approach the art of graphics and aesthetics “while ensuring (his) role as a visual artist.

During this graphic period (1929-1946), Vasarely laid the aesthetic foundations of his plastic research and “the basic repertoire of (his) abstract kinetic period in plan”. He exploited all the themes that would later be taken up: the work on line, the effects of materials, the play of light and shadow and already developed a certain taste for perspective. These constants can be found in his two-dimensional graphic studies such as “Zebras” (1938), “The Chessboard” (1935), and “Flower Girl” (1934) where the forms are not defined by a line but emerge from deformed networks or juxtaposed contrasts.