Op-Art

Op Art artists not only paint with brush and paint but incorporate the knowledge of the function of the human eye. The weaknesses of the organ become the strength of the art when illusory realities are created from colours and forms which dissolve on closer inspection into mere geometric compositions.

• What is Op Art?
• The genesis of Op Art
• Well-known Op Art artists
• Influence and impact of Op Art
• Op Art is still in demand today
• Upcoming Auctions - Op Art
• Our passed Op Art-Auctions
• Sell Op Art - Object evaluation & Consignment

Written in full, Op Art stands for ‘optical art’. The usual definition of Op Art describes it as a form of Concrete Art, the principles of which exerted a noticeable influence on Op Art and had a decisive effect on its characteristic features. Op Art is essentially based on the principle of optical illusion: far from representation, Op Art does not aim to depict, but create an illusion. The play with geometric forms and colours can be so convoluted and sophisticated that looking at a piece of Op Art can be dizzying. 
In their structure Op Art pictures often have a certain affinity to the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and his grid structure of vertical and horizontal lines, but are primarily rooted in the principles of Bauhaus and represent a reaction of art to the scientific findings and technical advances of the time. Two forms of Op Art emerged: kinetic and static Op Art. Kinetic Op Art reaches three-dimensionally into space, whilst the static remains two-dimensional.

Op Art was founded by Victor Vasarely (1908-1997), a Hungarian-born painter. He was inspired by Constructivism and established his ‘optical kinetics’ in Paris in the 1950s, a version of kinetic art based on mathematical calculations and carefully balanced geometric forms that trick the human eye. Op Art did note emerge in a vacuum but was also based on ideas that had been developed at the Bauhaus by László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) and other artists such as Josef Albers (1888-1976) which can be understood as a counter-reaction to Tachism, which emerged in Paris at around the same time. 
The origin of the name is unclear; the term is said to have emerged in 1964 in the run-up to the exhibition The Responsive Eye in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, whilst the painter and sculptor Donald Judd (1928-1994) – generally attributed to Minimalism – is sometimes cited as the originator when he used the term ‘Op Art’ to describe the Optical Paintings exhibition of the painter Julian Stanczak (1928-2017). 
Although Op Art is considered an abstract art form, the first true Op art painting was not free of figurative elements: Zebra, created as early as 1937, rouses the illusion of two frolicking zebras with its cleverly arranged white colour fields on a black ground, and is still one of the most frequently reproduced Op Art pictures.

Once Victor Vasarely introduced Op Art to the art world, it was enthusiastically taken up in the USA and western Europe in particular. Alongside Vasarely, the British painter Bridget Riley (born 1931) and the Venezuelan painter and sculptor Jesus Rafael Soto (1923-2005) played a decisive role as important pioneers in establishing Op Art. 
With his paintings praised for their vibrant colours and play with light, the US American graphic artist and painter Richard Anuskiewicz (1930-2020) is also considered a pioneer of Op Art. His choice of a romantic approach was unusual for Op Art, countering the mechanistic principle of geometric formulaity in a fascinating way. 
In Germany, the ideas of Op Art were taken up and developed further by Lothar Quinte (1923-2000) and Klaus Kammerichs (born 1933), whilst in Austria the painters Hildegard Joos (1909–2005) and Helga Philipp (1939–2002) were among the most prominent representatives of the widely embraced art movement. 
Victor Vasarely’s son Jean-Pierre Vasarely (1934-2002) also followed in his father’s footsteps and became a major figure pf Op Art under the artist’s name Yvaral. An Op Art artist of the second generation is Philip Taffe (born 1955), who reflects the ideas and concepts of his predecessors from the 1960s and has found his own approach. 
Many of the so-called Op Art artists were rather unhappy with this designation; Josef Albers, for example, considered the term ‘optical’ to be superfluous, for every visual art is always also optical and one does not speak of acoustic music or a haptical sculpture. Ludwig Wilding (1927-2010) did not want to be an Op Art artist either, but was categorised to the movement.

Because the common characteristics of Op Art favoured serial production, many Op Art pictures were widely distributed. On the one hand, the proximity to design and ornamentation guaranteed a far-reaching influence right up to the present day, but on the other it was repeatedly criticised in the contemporary art scene for its seemingly far too commercial orientation. 
Despite these accusations, Op Art – drawing on movements such as Dadaism, Futurism, Constructivism, Cubism and Neo-Expressionism – has itself had a significant impact on art history and influenced generations of artists, including the avant-garde Düsseldorf artists' group ZERO led by Heinz Mack (born 1931) and Otto Piene (1928-2014). 
Op Art unquestionably owes its great popularity also to its effective compositions which employ the millenia-old principle of optical illusion that was already used by magicians in ancient times to captivate a large audience. However, Op Art has always been more than mere hoax and fairground magic. 
The Op Art artists were not interested in superficial showmanship, but saw their work as an artistic exploration of the human capacity for perception. For certain representatives such as Vasarely and Albers, Op Art pictures and reliefs were based on complex and carefully considered formulas and principles, whilst in other cases they embodied the result of free creative impulses.

Kunsthaus Lempertz also regularly sells Op-Art paintings at auction: work by the Op-Art artist Jesus Raphael Soto has often successfully been offered for auction; Vibration (unofficial title), signed and dated in black pen, fetched 76,160 euros, many times higher than the original estimate of 20,000 euros.
Although Bridget Riley is also not happy with being categorised as an Op Art artist, she was able to achieve considerable success as such at Lempertz: The serigraph on Plexiglas with the unofficial title Fragment 7 far exceeded the initial estimate of 6,000 to 7,000 euros with a result of 42,160 euros.
Another major representative of Op Art offered at auction at Lempertz is Adolf Luther (1912-1990). The German sculptor was inspired by shards of glass which refract the light and he created his Sphärisches Hohlspiegelobjekt (Spherical Concave Mirror Object), which – certified by the Adolf Luther Foundation in Krefeld – realised 59,520 euros at Lempertz.

• Auction 1234 - Day Sale - Modern Art
• Auction 1234 - Day Sale - Contemporary Art
• Auction 1233 - Evening Sale - Modern Art and Contemporary Art
• Auction 1239 - Contemporary Art Online

A few examples of Op Art prices auctioned in Lempertz auctions:

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