Jean-Pierre Vasarely (1934, Paris – 2002, Paris), known as Yvaral, was a French artist working in the fields of op-art and kinetic art from 1954 onwards. He was the son of the famous Hungarian-born French painter of geometric abstractions Victor Vasarely. Yvaral studied Graphic Art and Publicity at the École des Arts Appliqués from 1950 to1953. In 1960, he was one of the founders of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel, GRAV. Other members were: Francisco Sobrino, Horacio Garcia Rossi, Joel Stein. This group of artists looked for an abstract visual language of geometric elements. In 1975 Yvaral introduced the term 'Numerical Art' to describe artwork composed (or programmed) according to numerical rules. From this time onwards he used computers to digitalize and manipulate images, although the images finally always were hand painted. When he died he left behind a large collection of his digitized, kinetic paintings. Yvaral had many solo exhibitions in many countries and received several important awards: Gold Medal, 5th San Marino Biennale (with GRAV) (1963); Gold Medal, New Delhi Triennale (1971); Gold Medal, Alexandria Triennale (1971).
