Bridget Riley CBE

Bridget Riley CH, CBE (b. 1931, London) is one of the most important British abstract painters of the post-war period. Since the early 1960s she has explored the ways in which colour, line, shape and repetition act upon human perception, creating paintings whose apparently simple structures generate sensations of movement, vibration, depth and light.

Riley studied at Goldsmiths College from 1949 to 1952 and at the Royal College of Art from 1952 to 1955. Her early work was figurative and landscape-based, but the study of Georges Seurat and his use of colour and optical relationships proved particularly important to her development. Around 1960 she began experimenting with the black-and-white geometric compositions that established her reputation.

Her first solo exhibition was held at Gallery One, London, in 1962. Two years later she was included in Bryan Robertson’s influential The New Generation at the Whitechapel Gallery alongside artists including David Hockney, Patrick Caulfield and Patrick Procktor. International recognition followed rapidly. Her painting Current was included in The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1965, the exhibition that brought Op Art to an international audience.

Riley’s early black-and-white paintings used repeated lines, curves and geometric forms to create intense visual effects while remaining entirely static. From 1967 she began introducing colour, greatly expanding the range of perceptual relationships available to her. Colour subsequently became central to her work, explored through stripes, curves, diagonals and increasingly complex sequences in which individual hues change according to their position and their relationship with those around them.

In 1968 Riley represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, where she became the first living British painter and the first woman to receive the International Prize for Painting. Her subsequent career has included major museum exhibitions throughout Europe, America, Asia and Australia, and her work is held in major public collections worldwide.

Riley was also closely associated during the 1960s with the artist Peter Sedgley. The two shared a studio and exchanged ideas about geometry, colour and painting. Riley later recalled that Sedgley’s architectural training helped her master the technical construction of curves and geometric forms. In 1968 Riley, Sedgley and Peter Townsend founded SPACE, providing affordable working studios for artists in London. Sedgley subsequently maintained a long association with The Redfern Gallery.

Riley was appointed CBE in 1974 and Companion of Honour in 1999, and received Japan’s Praemium Imperiale for Painting in 2003. She continues to live and work in London, Cornwall and France.