Faces of Dalí #4

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Jean‑Pierre Vasarely

1977

Serigraph

Portfolio

Description

Created in 1977, Faces of Dalí is a portfolio of six serigraphs in which Jean-Pierre Vasarely (Yvaral) applies the perceptual strategies of Op art to the emerging logic of computer-based image analysis. Working from a photographic likeness of Salvador Dalí, Yvaral translated portraiture into a system of modular units whose tonal values are precisely calibrated to reconstruct the image through optical effect rather than illusionistic modeling.

At this time, Yvaral did not yet work directly with computers. Instead, he devised an ingenious proto-digital process: projecting a black-and-white slide onto a grid, measuring light values tile by tile using a photoelectric cell, and converting those readings into geometric compositions. The results reward distance: Dalí’s curled moustache and intense gaze cohere only when the viewer’s eye blends discrete units of squares, circles, and rhombuses into a continuous image. Across the portfolio, variations in the palette—from blues to reds and greens to grayscale—demonstrate how chromatic structure alters perception.

The series reveals a crucial bridge between Op art and computer art, showing how optical abstraction anticipated digital imaging by treating vision itself as a programmable system.

Faces of Dalí #3 Jean‑Pierre Vasarely 1977 Print

Faces of Dalí #6 Jean‑Pierre Vasarely 1977 Print

Faces of Dalí #5 Jean‑Pierre Vasarely 1977 Print

Faces of Dalí #1 Jean‑Pierre Vasarely 1977 Print

Faces of Dalí #2 Jean‑Pierre Vasarely 1977 Print

Faces of Dali (portfolio) Jean‑Pierre Vasarely 1977 Print

Sphere Jean‑Pierre Vasarely 1979 Print

Washington Jean‑Pierre Vasarely 1980 Print