Like many visions of the future, Vasarely’s is an insightful glance into his own age. But he was really ahead of his time. He stipulated that the foundation use computers and suggested that slides, rather than the works themselves, be sent for traveling exhibitions. To Vasarely, the difference between the work and its reproduction was insignificant. Experienced in the round like this, in the world of his own making, he is barely a painter at all—he has the hand of an engineer and the soul of a poet.

Considering the foundation’s travails, the works have held up remarkably well, as Pierre Vasarely quietly reminds me. In his khaki flannel suit and white T-shirt, he exudes a dignified modesty, as if repenting for his family’s sins. The relatives in question are Michèle Taburno, Jean-Pierre (a.k.a. the artist Yvaral), and André Vasarely—Pierre’s stepmother, father, and uncle, respectively. Their byzantine story has engulfed the foundation in scandal for well over a decade. In fact, so notorious is the history of the family and the foundation that the French press has seen fit to divide it into two periods: “L’affaire Vasarely” and now “la nouvelle affaire Vasarely.” The original affaire began when Taburno took over as president of the foundation in 1995 and proceeded to mastermind an arbitrage that determined that the sons, as inheritors, were owed 290 million francs (almost $68 million). Because the foundation was broke, payment was settled with oils and canvas. By the time of Vasarely’s death in 1997, the Gordes museum was closed and the Aix foundation continued to deteriorate around the 42 installations and a handful of moldy velour sofas.

La nouvelle affaire began officially in 2006 when a court installed Pierre as a foundation board member with the same authority that his grandfather had had. “He [Victor] wanted me to look after the foundation—‘petit Pierre’ was programmed for that, because I wasn’t an artist like my father, or a doctor like my uncle.” Pierre swiftly launched an attack on his stepmother, who had moved to Chicago in 2004, and availed himself of what had become a sympathetic legal system. Owing to Pierre’s efforts, a court decided last April that Taburno should pay the foundation nearly $8 million, and a tribunal was convened for fall (after this story went to press) to look into the shady dealings of 1995. Pierre says that André has since joined the fight and plans to tell the judge that he never wanted to harm the foundation, that he was manipulated by Taburno (who continued to oversee André’s financial interests until June 1, 2007), and that he will give back any works he hasn’t sold. After Taburno was arrested in Chicago this past summer for theft (she was caught trying to move hundreds of Vasarely works from one clandestine storage unit to another), it looked quite certain that the Provence legal administrator was ready to bring Taburno to account for her actions.

Pierre recognizes that his father and uncle were under Taburno’s control: “Nobody could say anything against her. She told them, ‘I will make you rich men.’” Pierre says he and his father were “the best friends in the world until 1997—after that, our only relationship was in front of the judge.” His father filed for divorce from Taburno in 2001 but died a year later, before it went through. Some days before his death, however, Pierre says his father “signed many documents for Mrs. Taburno and against me.” Taburno tried to prevent Pierre from attending his father’s funeral, but he made a point of going. “I have no difficult feelings at all toward my father. I just find it was terrible for him not to know his two grandsons [Pierre’s children] because of the presence of Mrs. Taburno. My father and the friend he was to me has nothing to do with the man I had in front of me between 1997 and 2002.”

One of Pierre’s biggest challenges as he continues his efforts to reclaim the works is to regain the faith and support of the people of Aix-en-Provence. After so many years of dysfunction, most of them have simply lost interest in the place. “We have to rethink our presentation and come up with new projects,” he says. Despite all that has happened in France, Pierre is relieved that his grandfather also established two museums in Hungary—in Budapest and Pecs—both of which escaped Taburno’s greed. The directors of those museums stood up to Taburno, and he says she “didn’t insist.” This fall Pierre has even arranged for a traveling show of 60 of Vasarely’s works (from the Pecs museum and private collections) to make a stop at the foundation in Aix through October 30. Vasarely never foresaw the necessity of showing his early works in Aix, because that’s what the Gordes museum was for. Nevertheless, says Pierre, “he would have been very proud of this collaboration between his two favorite countries, and two of his museums. It’s an important event, and very symbolic. We need to show the importance of these works through contemporary researches, to show that he’s a part of art history.” He adds: “What I do now for the institution is in memory of these two great men—my father and grandfather—in order to respect their will.”