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Op Art

OP ART STYLE

The Op art movement emerged in the 1960s, mirroring the counterculture of the time in its embrace of visual trickery, graphic shapes and bright colors.

Spreading across Europe and the Americas, the style — whose name is short for “optical art” — influenced advertising, fashion and interior design before fading in the early ’70s.

Op art remained significant, however, for artists and scientists interested in the nature of perception. And today, it’s seeing a resurgence of interest from collectors and interior designers.

Op artists played with the principles of perception, manipulating line, shape, patterns and color to create the illusion of depth and movement. They drew on and evolved methods developed by past movements, from Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism, to produce intense visual experiences.

All the Op artists shared a focus on the gap between what is and what we perceive. Each, however, had a distinct approach to the issue and a unique visual style.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of Op art that includes works by Josef Albers, Bridget Riley, Jesús Rafael Soto and more.

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Style: Op Art
Artist: Babe Shapiro
"Zarch" Babe Shapiro, Optical Art, Hard-Edge Silver Hexagons Stripes Pattern
Located in New York, NY
Babe Shapiro Zarch, 1970 Signed, titled and dated on the stretcher Acrylic on canvas 30 x 22 inches Provenance: Private Collection, Long Island Babe Shapiro was born, in 1927 in Newark, New Jersey. He received his MFA from Hunter College where he studied under Robert Motherwell. His work was first recognized in 1958 by James Johnson Sweeney, director of the Guggenheim Museum at the time, who brought it to the attention of the Stable Gallery in New York City, where he was included in a group show, and where he had his first major solo show in 1962. His work has been exhibited widely in both solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, and is included in private collections, as well as in over 50 public and museum collections. Shapiro’s work is in the permanent collections of The Albright-Knox Gallery...
Category

1970s Op Art

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Purple v. 1, OP Art Silkscreen by Babe Shapiro
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Babe Shapiro, American (1937 - 2016) Title: Purple v. 1 Year: 1972 Medium: Silkscreen, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 75 Image Size: 28 x 28 inches Size: 35 x 3...
Category

1970s Op Art

Materials

Screen

Green v. 2, Geometric Abstract Screenprint by Babe Shapiro
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Babe Shapiro, American (1937 - 2016) Title: Green v. 2 Year: 1972 Medium: Silkscreen, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 75 Image Size: 28 x 28 inches Size: 35 x 35...
Category

1970s Op Art

Materials

Screen

Blue Hexagons, Geometric Screenprint by Babe Shapiro
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Babe Shapiro, American (1937 - 2016) Title: Blue Hexagons Year: 1971 Medium: Silkscreen, signed in pencil Edition: AP Image Size: 30 x 22 inches Size: 33 x 25 in. (83.8...
Category

1970s Op Art

Materials

Screen

Red v. 2, Geometric Abstract Screenprint by Babe Shapiro
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Babe Shapiro, American (1937 - 2016) Title: Red v. 2 Year: 1972 Medium: Silkscreen, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 99 Image Size: 25 x 25 inches Size: 35 x 35 in. (88...
Category

1970s Op Art

Materials

Screen

Related Items
Abstract Composition in Light Green - Screen Print by Victor Debach - 1970s
Located in Roma, IT
Abstract composition in light green is a Screen Print on Paper realized by Victor Debach in 1970s. Limited edition of 100 copies numbered and signed by the artist with pencil on the...
Category

1970s Op Art

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Metallic Water, unique 1960s Op Art painting (signed), Art Institute of Chicago
Located in New York, NY
Richard Anuszkiewicz Metallic Water, 1964 Painting with Liquitex on canvas. (1964 Art Institute of Chicago Exhibition and J.L. Hudson Gallery) Signed boldly and dated 1964 on the ver...
Category

1960s Op Art

Materials

Mixed Media, Acrylic, Canvas

Agam Silkscreen Mod Judaica Lithograph Hand Signed Israeli Kinetic Op Art Print
Located in Surfside, FL
Yaacov Agam Israeli (b. 1928) Hand signed, not individually numbered but from edition of 180. I can include a copy of the title sheet with the edition size and his signature if you r...
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1980s Op Art

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Lithograph, Screen

TallerOr
Located in Fairlawn, OH
TallerOr Screen print printed on "card board" (cream poster board), 1968 Signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 150 (54/150), plus 11 for the Vasarely Fou...
Category

1960s Op Art

Materials

Screen

TallerOr
TallerOr
H 23.5 in W 232.5 in
Untitled
Located in Ljubljana, SI
Original color silkscreen, 1998. Edition of 108 signed and numbered impressions on Arches paper. Sol LeWitt was a well-known American Conceptual and Minimal artist. He is famous for ...
Category

1990s Op Art

Materials

Screen

Untitled
H 37.41 in W 30.32 in
Swiss Artist Large Color Symphony Silkscreen Serigraph Print Kinetic Op Art
Located in Surfside, FL
Hand signed and numbered from edition of 90 Jakob Weder, (Switzerland, 1906-1990) Swiss color/music kinetic artist. known for his oil and tempera painting ...
Category

20th Century Op Art

Materials

Lithograph, Screen

Yaacov Agam Large Silkscreen Colors on Gold Signed Israeli Kinetic Op Art Print
Located in Surfside, FL
This is a large hand signed serigraph silkscreen, pencil numbered in Roman numerals. biographical info: The son of a rabbi, Agam can trace his ancestry back six generations to the f...
Category

20th Century Op Art

Materials

Screen

Blue Composition - Screen Print by Victor Debach - 1970s
Located in Roma, IT
Blue Composition is an original contemporary artwork realized by Victor Debach in the 1970s. Mixed colored screen print on paper. Hand signed on the lower right margin. Numbered o...
Category

1970s Op Art

Materials

Screen

Fuchsine Composition - Original Screen Print by Victor Debach - 1970s
Located in Roma, IT
Hand signed and numbered. Edition of 100 prints. On headed paper.
Category

1970s Op Art

Materials

Screen

Victor Vasarely, Door, 1982
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
Victor Vasarely (Hungarian / French 1906 – 1997) Door, 1982 Numbered ‘E.A. 7/9’ (lower left) and signed Vasarely (lower right) Artist’s proof Silkscreen print 43 x 23.1/2 in. (109.3 ...
Category

Mid-20th Century Op Art

Materials

Screen

Agam Silkscreen Mod Judaica Lithograph Hand Signed Israeli Kinetic Op Art Print
Located in Surfside, FL
Yaacov Agam Israeli (b. 1928) Hand signed, not individually numbered but from edition of 180. I can include a copy of the title sheet with the edition size and his signature if you request. sheet: 13.5 X 13.5 inches Some of these works have beautiful Hebrew calligraphy and mod imagery, animals and such that are not usually found in his work. This is a masterpiece of bold, graphic, mod design. Along with Reuven Rubin and Menashe Kadishman he is among Israel's best known artists internationally. Biographical info: The son of a rabbi, Yaacov Agam can trace his ancestry back six generations to the founder of the Chabad movement in Judaism. in 1946, he entered the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. Studying with Mordecai Ardon, a former student at the Weimar Bauhaus. Yaakov Agam has been associated h with “abstract” artists, “hard edge” artists, and artists such as Josef Albers and Max Bill. Others find in Agam’s work an indebtedness to the masters of the Bauhaus. Agam’s approach to art, being conceptual in nature, has been likened to Marcel Duchamp’s, who expressed the need to put art “at the service of the spirit.” And, because of Agam’s employment of color and motion in his art, he has been compared to Alexander Calder, the artist who put sculpture into motion. (Motion is not an end, but a means for Agam. Calder’s mobiles are structures that are fixed, revolving at the whim of the wind. In a work by Agam, the viewer must intervene.) Agam has also been classified as an “op art” artist because he excels in playing with our visual sensitivities. Agam went to Zurich to study with Johannes Itten at the Kunstgewerbeschule. There, he met Frank Lloyd Wright and Siegfried Giedion, whose ideas on the element of time in art and architecture impressed him. In 1955, Galerie Denise René hosted a major group exhibition in connection with Vasarely's painting experiments with movement. in addition to art by Vasarely, it included works by Yaacov Agam, Pol Bury, Soto and Jean Tinguely, among others. Most Americans were first introduced to Vasarely by the groundbreaking exhibition, "The Responsive Eye," at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1965. Josef Albers, Richard Anuszkiewicz. The show confirmed Vasarely's international reputation as the father of Op art. Agam has sought to express his ideas in a non-static form of art. In his abstract Kinetic works, which range from paintings and graphics to sculptural installations and building facades. Agam continually seeks to explore new possibilities in form and color and to involve the viewer in all aspects of the artistic process. Thus, for the past 40 years, Yaacov Agam’s pioneering ideas have impacted developments in art, (painting, monoprint, lithograph and agamograph) architecture, theatre, and public sculpture. Reflecting both his Israeli Jewish...
Category

1980s Op Art

Materials

Lithograph, Screen

Agam Silkscreen Mod Judaica Lithograph Hand Signed Israeli Kinetic Op Art Print
Located in Surfside, FL
Yaacov Agam Israeli (b. 1928) Hand signed, not individually numbered but from edition of 180. I can include a copy of the title sheet with the edition size and his signature if you r...
Category

1980s Op Art

Materials

Lithograph, Screen

Op Art art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Op art available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add art created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, purple, orange, red and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Victor Vasarely, Roy Ahlgren, Victor Debach, and Yaacov Agam. Frequently made by artists working with Screen Print, and Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Op Art, so small editions measuring 2 inches across are also available. Prices for art made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $66 and tops out at $350,000, while the average work sells for $1,616.

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