Op art

Op art—short for optical art—is a visual art style built on distorted or manipulated geometric patterns, often designed to trick the eye. These works are typically abstract, and many of the most famous examples use only black and white. Viewers commonly perceive movement, hidden images, flashing or vibrating patterns, or shapes that seem to swell or warp.

The style’s roots stretch back to the early 20th century, though the term “Op art” itself was coined in 1964. Its popularity peaked in the 1960s. Unlike the older trompe-l’œil tradition, which uses realistic, figurative subjects to create a deceptive sense of three-dimensional space, op art stays abstract and focuses on purely optical effects.

Illusionism—the depiction of deep space on a flat surface—has appeared in art since ancient times. But op art’s specific interest in graphic tricks and exotic optical illusions can be traced to movements like Neo-Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, and Dada. The Divisionists, a Neo-Impressionist group, tried to make their paintings seem brighter by using optical principles. At the Bauhaus, László Moholy-Nagy taught photographic op art; one exercise had students punch holes in cards and photograph them.

The term “op art” first appeared in *Time* magazine in 1964, in response to Julian Stanczak’s show *Optical Paintings* at the Martha Jackson Gallery. It was meant to describe a form of abstract, non-objective art that relies on optical illusions. But works now called op art had been around for years before that. Victor Vasarely’s 1938 painting *Zebras*, for example, uses only curving black-and-white stripes with no outlines, making the stripes seem to merge with and burst from the background. John McHale’s black-and-white “dazzle” panels at the 1956 *This Is Tomorrow* exhibition and his *Pandora* series at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1962 also show early op art tendencies. In 1965, Martin Gardner discussed op art and its mathematical connections in his *Mathematical Games* column in *Scientific American*. In Italy, Franco Grignani—originally trained as an architect—became a key figure in graphic design, with op and kinetic art at the center of his work. His Woolmark logo, launched in Britain in 1964, remains his most famous design.

Op art owes much to the constructivist ideas of the Bauhaus. That German school, founded by Walter Gropius, emphasized the relationship between form and function, and taught students to approach design analytically and rationally, aiming for unified compositions. Op art also draws from trompe-l’œil and anamorphosis, and has links to psychological research, especially Gestalt theory and psychophysiology. When the Bauhaus was forced to close in 1933, many of its teachers moved to the United States, where the approach took hold in Chicago and later at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where Anni and Josef Albers taught.

According to art historian Frank Popper, op artists exploited a range of visual phenomena: after-images and consecutive movement, line interference, dazzle effects, ambiguous figures and reversible perspective, successive color contrasts and chromatic vibration, and—in three-dimensional works—different viewpoints and the layering of elements in space.

In 1955, for the exhibition *Mouvements* at the Denise René gallery in Paris, Victor Vasarely and Pontus Hulten issued a “Yellow manifesto” promoting new kinetic expressions based on optical and luminous effects as well as painted illusion. The term “kinetic art” in its modern sense first appeared at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich in 1960, and the movement developed widely in the 1960s. In most European countries, kinetic art includes optical art that uses illusions, as well as art based on actual movement—seen in the work of Yacov Agam, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jesús Rafael Soto, Gregorio Vardanega, and Nicolas Schöffer. From 1961 to 1968, the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV)—founded by François Morellet, Julio Le Parc, Francisco Sobrino, Horacio Garcia Rossi, Yvaral, Joël Stein, and Vera Molnár—was a collective of opto-kinetic artists. Their 1963 manifesto called for direct public participation, using interactive labyrinths to influence behavior.

Some members of the European group Nouvelle tendance (1961–1965), such as Almir Mavignier and Gerhard von Graevenitz, also worked in op art, mainly through serigraphs, studying optical illusions. The term “op art” irritated many artists labeled under it, including Josef Albers and Julian Stanczak, who preferred the name “perceptual art.” From 1964, Arnold Schmidt held several solo exhibitions of his large, black-and-white shaped optical paintings at the Terrain Gallery in New York.

In 1965, from February 23 to April 25, the Museum of Modern Art in New York staged *The Responsive Eye*, curated by William C. Seitz. The exhibition later traveled to St. Louis, Seattle, Pasadena, and Baltimore. It featured a wide range of works, from the minimalism of Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly to the smooth plasticity of Alexander Liberman, the collaborative efforts of the Anonima group, and pieces by well-known artists such as Wojciech Fangor, Victor Vasarely, Julian Stanczak, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Wen-Ying Tsai, Bridget Riley, and Getulio Alviani. The show focused on perceptual aspects of art, arising from both the illusion of movement and the interaction of color relationships.