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For the boxer, see Bridgett Riley.

Bridget Riley
Movement in Squares, 1961.
Birth name	Bridget Louise Riley
Born	April 24, 1931 (1931-04-24) (age 77) London, England, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Field	painting, drawing and sculpture
Training	Goldsmiths College, Royal College of Art
Movement	optical art

Bridget Louise Riley CH CBE (born April 24, 1931 in Norwood^[1], London) is an English painter who is one of the foremost proponents of op art, art that exploits the fallibility of the human eye. Bridgett Riley (born May 13, 1973) is a female boxer from Oakville, Missouri. ... Image File history File links Riley,_Movement_in_Squares. ... is the 114th day of the year (115th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... Goldsmiths College (founded in 1891 by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths as Goldsmiths Technical and Recreative Institute) has been a part of the federal University of London since 1904, when it took its current name. ... The Darwin Building at Kensington Gore The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a university in London, England. ... Op art is a term used to described certain paintings made primarily in the 1960s which exploit the fallibilty of the eye through the use of optical illusions. ... The Order of the Companions of Honour is a British and Commonwealth Order. ... The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these are Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross (GBE) Knight Commander... is the 114th day of the year (115th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... West Norwood (sometimes referred to as Norwood) is a place in the London Borough of Lambeth. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... Painting by Rembrandt self-portrait Detail from Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez, in which the painter portrayed himself at work For the computer graphics program, see Corel Painter. ... Op art is a term used to described certain paintings made primarily in the 1960s which exploit the fallibilty of the eye through the use of optical illusions. ... This article is about modern humans. ... For other uses, see Eye (disambiguation). ...

Early life

Riley was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College; she studied art first at Goldsmiths College and later at the Royal College of Art, where her fellow students included artists Peter Blake and Frank Auerbach. She left college early to look after her ailing father, and suffered a mental breakdown shortly thereafter. After recovery, she worked in a number of jobs, including several as an art teacher, and briefly in the art department of the advertising company J. Walter Thompson. Cheltenham Ladies College is an independent boarding and day school for girls, located in Cheltenham, a spa town in the English Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire. ... This article is about the philosophical concept of Art. ... Goldsmiths College (founded in 1891 by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths as Goldsmiths Technical and Recreative Institute) has been a part of the federal University of London since 1904, when it took its current name. ... The Darwin Building at Kensington Gore The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a university in London, England. ... Blakes album cover Sir Peter Thomas Blake (born June 25, 1932, in Dartford, Kent) is an English pop artist, best known for his design of the sleeve for The Beatles album Sgt. ... Frank Helmut Auerbach (born April 29, 1931) is a jewish painter. ... For the EP by Black Flag, see Nervous Breakdown. ... This article is about the philosophical concept of Art. ... James Walter Thompson (1847-1928) was the founder of the JWT advertising agency and a pioneer of many advertising techniques. ...

Career

In the late 1950s, Riley began to produce works in a style recognisably her own, a style inspired by a number of sources. A study of the pointillism of Georges Seurat, and subsequent landscapes produced in that style, led to her interest in optical effects. The paintings of Victor Vasarely, who had used designs of black and white lines since the 1930s also had a strong influence on Riley's early works. In her later works, the influence of the futurists, especially Giacomo Balla, can also be observed. Detail from Seurats La Parade (1889), showing the contrasting dots of paint used in pointillism. ... Le Chahut was painted by Seurat from 1889 to 1890. ... Zhan Ziqian, Strolling About in Spring, c. ... Victor Vasarely (Vásárhelyi Győző) (9 April 1906, Pécs - 15 March 1997, Paris) was a French Hungarian-born artist often acclaimed as the father of Op-art. ... Futurism was a 20th century art movement. ... Giacomo Balla (July 24, 1871 - March 1, 1958) was an Italian painter. ...

Cataract 3, 1967.

It was during this time that Riley began to paint the black and white works for which she is best known today. They present a great variety of geometric forms that produce sensations of movement or colour. In the early 1960s, her works were said to induce sensations in viewers as varied as seasickness and sky diving. Works in this style comprised her first solo show in London in 1962 at Gallery One run by Victor Musgrave, as well as numerous subsequent shows. Visually, these works relate to many concerns of the period: a perceived need for audience participation (this relates them to the Happenings, for which the period is famous), challenges to the notion of the mind-body duality which led some people to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs (see Aldous Huxley's writings); concerns with a tension between a scientific future which might be very beneficial or might lead to a nuclear war; and fears about the loss of genuine individual experience in a Brave New World. ^[2] Image File history File links Riley,_Cataract_3. ... Image File history File links Riley,_Cataract_3. ... Victor Musgrave (died 1984) was a British Poet, art dealer and curator. ... Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. ...

Shadow Play, 1990.

Although remembered today mainly for the impressions of movement and colour they give through the exploitation of optical illusions, it is speculated that the impetus for Riley making these seemingly cold and calculated works was a failed love affair. One of the more famous works in this style is Fall (1963). Image File history File links Riley,_Shadowplay. ... Image File history File links Riley,_Shadowplay. ... An optical illusion. ...

International career

In 1965, Riley exhibited in the New York City show, The Responsive Eye (organised by Victor Vasarely), the exhibition which first drew attention to so-called Op art. One of her paintings was reproduced on the cover of the show's catalogue, though Riley later became disillusioned with the movement, and expressed regret that her work was exploited for commercial purposes. New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... Victor Vasarely (Vásárhelyi Győző) (9 April 1906, Pécs - 15 March 1997, Paris) was a French Hungarian-born artist often acclaimed as the father of Op-art. ...

Following a major retrospective in the early 1970s, Riley began traveling extensively. After a trip to Egypt in the early 1980s, where she was inspired by colourful hieroglyphic decoration, Riley began to explore colour and contrast. In some works, lines of colour are used to created a shimmering effect, , while in other works, the canvas is filled with tessellating patterns. In 1986 Riley met the postmodern painters Philip Taaffe and Ross Bleckner, and was inspired to introduce a diagonal element to her work. Typical of these later colourful works is Shadow Play. A tessellated plane seen in street pavement. ... Philip Taaffe (born 1955) is an American artist We Are Not Afraid, 1985. ... Ross Bleckner (born 1949) is an American artist from New York City. ...

In many works since this period, Riley has employed others to paint the pieces, while she concentrates on the actual design of her work.

The tasks and duties of an artist

Riley made the following statement about the nature of artistic work, in her lecture 'Painting Now':

'When Samuel Beckett was a young name in the early Thirties and trying to find a basis from which he could develop, he wrote an essay known as Beckett/Proust in which he examined Proust's views of creative work; and he quotes Proust's artistic credo as declared in Time Regained - "the tasks and duties of a writer [not an artist, a writer] are those of a translator". This could also be said of a composer, a painter or anyone practising an artistic metier. An artist is someone with a text which he or she wants to decipher.

'Beckett interprets Proust as being convinced that such a text cannot be created or invented but only discovered within the artist himself, and that it is, as it were, almost a law of his own nature. It is his most precious possession, and, as Proust explains, the source of his innermost happiness. However, as can be seen from the practice of the great artists, although the text may be strong and durable and able to support a lifetime's work, it cannot be taken for granted and there is no guarantee of permanent possession. It may be mislaid or even lost, and retrieval is very difficult. It may lie dormant and be discovered late in life after a long struggle, as with Mondrian or Proust himself. Why it should be that some people have this sort of text while others do not, and what 'meaning' it has, is not something which lends itself to argument. Nor is it up to the artist to decide how important it is, or what value it has for other people. To ascertain this is perhaps beyond even the capacities of his own time.'

(NB. Riley is using 'text' here to mean not only written documents, but any phenomena subject to interpretation, such as experiences or perceptions) This article is about the Irish writer. ... Proust redirects here. ... In Search of Lost Time (fr. ... Piet Mondrian, 1924 Pieter Cornelis (Piet) Mondriaan, after 1912 Mondrian, (pronounced: Dutch IPA: , later IPA: ), (March 7, 1872–February 1, 1944) was a Dutch painter. ...

From: 'Painting Now', 23rd William Townsend Memorial Lecture, given by Bridget Riley CBE at Slade School of Art, London, 29 November 1996, quoted in article 'A plea for Painting', by Michael Bracewell, The Guardian Weekend 15 March 1997 is the 333rd day of the year (334th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... For other uses, see Guardian. ... is the 74th day of the year (75th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the band, see 1997 (band). ...

External links

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• Bridget Riley exhibition at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, 1998-9

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References