On View
Not on viewObject number2009.65
Plate III (Morphemes Suite)
Artist
Victor Vasarely
(French, 1906-1997)
Date1965
Mediumengraving in relief
Dimensionsimage: 15 × 11 in. (38.1 × 27.9 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Charlotte Collins from the Charles and Charlotte Collins Collection
Exhibition History"A Passion for Collecting: Prints of the 1960s and '70s from the Collins Collection," KIA Galleries 2&5 (Nov. 13, 2010 - Jan. 2, 2011).
"Drawn to Abstraction," Sardoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA (August 25 - November 1, 2020).
Label Text“Morpheme” is a linguistic term that describes a grammatical unit that cannot be further reduced without losing meaning, such as the words “and” or “look,” but also “-ed” (signifying past tense), or “-s” (plurality). The title Morphemes Suite suggests that Vasarely was exploring minimal visual units that expressed the most basic internal geometries he believed lay within all elements of the natural world.
Plate III presents a partial circle as a minimal unit that builds complexity when repeated in multiple orientations. Color is also reduced to the binary distinction of black and white, but can express limitless patterns. This print was completed at the end of Vasarely’s “black and white” period, when he developed the foundations of what would be called Optical (Op) Art.
