Vintage Vasarely Rug by Victor Vasarely Capella-4 BB8196 5'9" × 5'10" $12,000

A rare piece of French vintage geometric carpet by Victor Vasarely Capella-4 with woven initial (V) at a corner, dating back to circa 1970. Vasarely experimented with textural effects, perspective, shadow, and light, which is well observed in this rug theme. Optical illusion and three-dimensional effects are enhanced by the contrast play of black and very light gray colors.

Victor Vasarely born April 9, 1908, Pécs, Hungary—died March 15, 1997, Paris, France. Hungarian-born French painter of geometric abstractions who became one of the leading figures of the Op art movement. Vasarely was trained as an artist in Budapest in the Bauhaus tradition. In 1930 he left Hungary and settled in Paris, where he initially supported himself as a commercial artist but continued to do his own work. During the 1930s he was influenced by Constructivism, but by the 1940s his characteristic style of painting animated surfaces of geometric forms and interacting colours had emerged. His style reached maturity in the mid-1950s and 1960s, when he began using brighter, more vibrant colours to further enhance the suggestion of movement through optical illusion.