Bridget Riley BRITISH, b. 1931

Bridget Riley is one of the most influential figures in postwar British art, celebrated for her rigorous explorations of perception and the dynamic relationship between colour, form and space. Rising to prominence in the 1960s, she became a central force in the development of Op Art, creating works that seem to shimmer, pulse or shift as the viewer moves before them. Her early black and white paintings introduced a precise visual language built on rhythm and repetition, while her subsequent embrace of colour opened an entirely new chapter in which chromatic interplay became the vehicle for energy, light and spatial complexity.

 

Born in London and trained at Goldsmiths College and the Royal College of Art, Riley briefly worked in advertising before dedicating herself fully to painting. Her practice, grounded in intense observation and meticulous experimentation, has led to a career of remarkable consistency and continual innovation. Over the decades she has developed several distinct bodies of work, each deepening her investigation into the sensory experience of looking.

 

Riley’s art has been the subject of major exhibitions across the world, with shows in London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Her works are held in leading public collections including the Tate, the Centre Pompidou, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Arts Council England and the Stedelijk Museum. Highly sought-after and critically acclaimed, her paintings, works on paper and prints remain touchstones in the study of abstraction and visual perception.

 

 

Across more than six decades of practice, Bridget Riley has redefined the possibilities of colour and pattern, offering viewers an encounter that is at once analytical and intensely alive.