Julio Le Parc is regarded as a true revolutionary in the visual arts. His earliest works, created during his formative years, already vouched for his pioneering spirit.

Trained at Argentina’s National School of Fine Arts, Le Parc was actively involved in student movements promoting creative freedom. His practice obeys a scientific and objective procedure, removed from the expressionistic movements prevailing in 1950s Paris. Apart from the work of Victor Vasarely, his influences include Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and the texts and reflections of the master of colour Josef Albers (1888-1976).

After an early period inspired by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Le Parc’s work evolved towards analytic and scientific abstraction, based on a search for unitary systems that would regulate the shapes on the surface. In 1959, after experimenting with the possibilities of white, black and grey, the artist started a series of experiments with colour, defining a range of 14 pure colours, with no degradations, which he combined with each other, alternating one or two forms in a horizontal displacement, juxtaposing four ranges of colour which he developed vertically, horizontally or diagonally to finally superimpose another four ranges. Those early approaches created in tempera on cardboard were precursors of his Modulaciones: a series of experiments he began to explore in 1974 to which three works in the BBVA Collection belong, including the work in hand, Thème 9 variation-acrylique sur papier. Those works are based on simple organisational systems. In each case, the correlation of the forms depends on the same principle. The technique used——allowed Le Parc to achieve a degradation from dark to light, and a precise modulation of the surface. As this drawing evinces, in the works in this series the colour range is even further reduced than before, with the attention now shifted to a concern that would be fully visible in later works: the introduction of movement in the artwork. The play of forms and colours creates the visual sensation of displacement, and a vibration that heralds the mobile objects of his future works.

Julio Le Parc’s work is the outcome of a complex ongoing process of research with form, colour, materials and movement. From the 1950s onwards, his works evolved from post-Cubist two-dimensional works to a geometric three-dimensionality in which movement and interaction with the spectator were instrumental. The seed of his iconic interactive pieces can be found in these two-dimensional visual explorations that laid the conceptual foundations for all his later work.