Victor Vasarely

Cofounder of op art, Victor Vasarely (1906-97) forged a bridge between interwar abstractionism and the postwar avant-gardes with a vast oeuvre spanning more than six decades and incorporating all manner of styles and influences. Vasarely began his career in advertising as a graphic designer, and his art blurred the boundaries between the fine and applied arts--between, for example, a panel painting and a poster.

Assembling 120 works from both European and US collections, and published for a major European survey, Victor Vasarely: In the Labyrinth of Modernism traces the roots and genesis of this often-misrepresented artist based on key pictures and objects, arguing for an alternative vision of 20th-century art history in terms of both genealogy and genre.