Vera Molnar

Hungary, 1924 - France, 2023

Also known by her maiden name, Gaks Vera (GV), was a Hungarian-born artist and a pioneer in digital and algorithmic art. Often recognized as the first female digital artist, she was born in Budapest in 1924. Molnar’s work was rooted in the pictorial traditions of Eastern Europe, but she moved to Paris in 1947 to pursue a bold and experimental career. Starting her artistic journey at the age of eight, Molnar remained dedicated to her craft throughout her life, continuing to create art daily until her passing at ninety-nine.

At first glance, her painting practice can be classified as geometric abstraction, utilizing a basic vocabulary based on the line, the circle, the square and the meander. However, Molnar spent much of her career developing an intense theoretical reflection on ways of creating and mechanisms of vision. Inspired by Mondrian, Malevich, and the concrete art movement, she stated that she had fascination with all work undertaken with “exact sciences and mathematics in particular”. From this foundation, she introduced to the rigor of her work a certain amount of chance, a “hint of disorder” as she put it, to shake up its strict algorithmic conception.

Represented by Oniris.Art, Rennes.