Vera Molnár (born 1924) is a Hungarian media artist living and working in France. Molnar is widely considered to be a pioneer of

computer art Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many tradit ...

and

generative art Generative art refers to art that in whole or in part has been created with the use of an autonomous system. An autonomous system in this context is generally one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an artwork that w ...

, and is also one of the first women to use computers in her art practice. Born in Hungary, she studied aesthetics and art history at the Budapest College of Fine Arts. In the 1940s and 50s, she created non-representational paintings. By 1959 she was making combinatorial images; in 1968 she would use a computer to create her first algorithmic drawings. In the 1960s she founded two groups in France concerned with the use of technology within the arts: the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel and Art et Informatique. Her work has been widely collected by major museums; in 2007 she was named a Chevalier of Arts and Letters in France. She was selected as one of 213 artists for the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022.

Life

Vera Molnár, born 1924 in Hungary, is one of the pioneers of computer and algorithmic arts. Trained as a traditional artist, Molnár studied for a diploma in

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

and aesthetics at the

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...

College of Fine Arts. She iterated combinatorial images from as early as 1959. In 1968 she began working with computers, where she began to create algorithmic paintings based on simple geometric shapes and geometrical themes.

Work

Molnár created her first non-representational images in 1946. These were abstract geometrical and systematically determined paintings. In 1947 she received an artists’ fellowship to study in Rome at the Villa Giulia, and shortly after moved to France, where she currently resides. In the 1960s, Molnár co-founded several artist research groups. The first, in 1960, was Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel, which investigate collaborative approaches to mechanical and kinetic art. The second was Art et Informatique, with a focus on art and computing. Molnar learned the early programming languages of Fortran and

Basic BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

, and gained access to a computer at a research lab in Paris where she began to make computer graphic drawings on a

plotter A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting ...

Legacy

Molnár was part of the 2010 exhibition "On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century" at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

in New York. The exhibition demonstrated the history of drawing lines. A 2015 retrospective exhibition called "Regarding the Infinite , Drawings 1950-1987" was held at Senior & Shopmaker Gallery in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Awards

In 2005 Molnár received the DAM Digital Arts Award for her life’s work, which includes €20,000 prize, and a cataloged exhibition. Vera Molnár’s exhibit, (Un)Ordnung.(Dés)Ordre. at the Museum Haus Konstruktiv shows her early freehand drawings never exhibited before, from her late-1960s to the new installation at Museum Haus Konstruktiv. Molnár was appointed Chevalier of Arts and Letters (2007), and won the outstanding merit award AWARE in 2018. Molnár is one of 213 artists announced as part of the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022. The theme for the Venice Biennale is to "Challenge the Idea of ‘Men as the Center of the Universe’".

Collections

* Frac Lorraine, France *

Museum of Fine Arts Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...

, New York City * Museum Ritter, Waldenbuch, Germany *

Morgan Library & Museum The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th S ...

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

, Washington D.C. *

Tate Museum Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the ...

, London *

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, London

References

External links

Official website

Official Artnet page

Official MoMa page

Official Getty Page

Official Artsy page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Molnar, Vera 1924 births Living people 20th-century French women artists 21st-century French women artists 20th-century Hungarian women artists 21st-century Hungarian women artists Artists from Budapest Hungarian emigrants to France French digital artists Women digital artists French contemporary artists Hungarian contemporary artists