Vera Molnar

Vera Molnár (née Gács; 5 January 1924 – 7 December 2023) was a Hungarian media artist who lived and worked in Paris, France. Molnár is widely considered to have been a pioneer of the generative art aspect of computer art. She was one of the first women to use computers in her fine art practice. In the 1960s, she founded two art groups in France concerned with the use of art and technology: the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel and Art et Informatique. Born in Hungary, she studied aesthetics and art history at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts. In the 1940s and 1950s, she created abstract paintings. By 1959 she was making combinatorial images and in 1968 she began using a computer to create her first algorithmic drawings. In 1976, her first solo exhibition in the gallery of the London Polytechnic took place. Her work has been widely collected by major museums. In 2007, she was named a Chevalier of Arts and Letters in France. Molnár was selected as one of 213 artists for the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022.