Vasarely Museum, Budapest

The Vasarely Museum (full name Museum of Fine Arts Vasarely Museum) is a large permanent exhibition of Victor Vasarely's works in District III of Budapest, at Szentlélek Square.

History

Victor Vasarely (1906–1997) was a defining figure of 20th‑century art, a key figure of Op Art, kinetic and international geometric abstract art.

His life began in the Austro‑Hungarian Monarchy: he was born in Pécs as Győző Vásárhelyi, grew up in Pöstyén (Piešťany, Slovakia) and finished high school in Budapest. There he earned his training in advertising graphics in the workshop of Sándor Bortnyik, which after his move to Paris in the 1930s provided the “Bauhaus foundation” of his art. Vasarely’s motto was that art should be accessible to everyone. The “democratization of art”, the multiplied graphic and multiplika became the paradigm of his artistic production.

Victor Vasarely wrote his first gifting letter about an “inalienable” donation dated 23 September 1981 to the capital city of Budapest, Hungary. This was followed by a second letter dated 20 June 1986 in Paris and a third dated 22 September 1986 in Annet‑sur‑Marne, confirming the donation for the collection of the Vasarely Museum to be established in the Zichy Castle in Óbuda. According to the Operating Permit of the Minister of Culture dated 14 October 1987, the Vasarely Museum “operates as a branch of the Museum of Fine Arts”, beginning its operation as a museum exhibition space.

The Vasarely Museum opened on May 8, 1987 at 11 a.m., in the presence of the artist. Since then the focus of the Vasarely Museum’s activity has been the object donation comprising 411 items of Victor Vasarely’s oeuvre – original as well as multiplied works – supplemented by an additional 92 items of archived library written, printed, and slide material. The museum’s task is the preservation and publication of this, and its scholarly research.

Since the opening of the Vasarely Museum it has fulfilled a dual function: a museum collection with a permanent exhibition and also a “kunsthalle”-type exhibition venue. It maintains a permanent exhibition representing Victor Vasarely’s oeuvre and provides space for temporary exhibitions that illuminate the oeuvre and its context. In this sense, it hosts thematic temporary exhibitions of the Open Structures Art Association in two rooms.

The mission of the Vasarely Museum today is to be the recognized guardian and research centre of Victor Vasarely’s oeuvre, as well as an internationally recognized factor in the presentation and research of abstract and neo‑abstract, kinetic and media art. According to Vasarely’s will, it also monitors the works of Hungarian‑origin surrealist, abstract and neo‑abstract artists working (or having worked) in Western emigration, creators following the educational principles of the Bauhaus and Bortnyik Workshop, as well as kinetic, conceptual and media‑art creators.