Essays

Biography

Bridget Riley was born in Norwood, South London in 1931.  She studied at Goldsmiths College, London (1949-52) and later at the Royal College of Art (1952-55). In 1956 she saw an exhibition in London that greatly impacted her direction and influenced her.  It was an exhibition of American Abstract Expressionist painters at the Tate Gallery, the first exhibition of its kind in the country. In 1958 the Whitechapel Gallery held the first major show in Britain. The show featured American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock. This was also said to be an inspiration on her work. While she was still finding herself as an artist, she took two years of her life to study Neo-impressionist painters and pointillism, specifically, Georges Seurat, a French pointillist painter from the 1880s. While she worked at the Hornsey College of Art in the early sixties, Riley began her first Op Art paintings, working only in black and white and using simple geometric shapes – squares, lines and ovals. Although she investigated many areas of perception, her work, with its emphasis on optical effects was never intended to be an end in itself. It was instinctive, not based on theory but guided by what she saw with her own eyes.

Relevance to Key Themes

Bridget Riley is one of the key contributors to the OP (optical) art movements in not only the United States, but also the world. She is one of the first official ‘OP’ artists and is often referred to as the queen of optical art even though the term was official until 1964. Although that is one of the key aspects of her work, there are many other category’s she fits into that apply to the course. She specializes in painting, her work is abstract like many of the artists we’ve focused on in the 60’s, and at the beginning of her career not only was she an expressionist but she also had many elements of minimalism that we would’ve seen with someone like Frank Stella. While he let the canvas and process determine the piece, there was obvious thought in the aesthetic nature, and one would be hard pressed to not find similarities in his pieces such as the black paintings and Riley’s first pieces. Not only with minimal color palette but stylistically. While most of her notoriety has came from optical art and the responsive eye, her career has much wider range. Her work has not followed a single, straightforward line of development. Rather, its course resembles a kind of musical progression in which different themes are stated, explored, combined with other ideas, and progressively transformed.

Influences

As stated before, her mentor Maurice de Sausmarez introduced her to Georges Seurat’s pointillism which led her to an interest in optical effects. In Seurat’s painting, small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Victor Vasarely’s 1930s designs of black and white lines also seemed to have a strong influence on her. In 1958 the Whitechapel Gallery held their first major show in Britain. The show featured American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock which she has been quoted on saying was a huge influence on her.  One surprising inspiration was found when Riley had her own exhibit at the National Gallery. She chose a classical work from the National Gallery, Mantegna’s roman procession painting from 1506. The piece was juxtaposed across from one of her wavy optical pieces. The flow and wave type structure, in both the overall piece and in small details like the creases in a figures dress was said to inspire her early OP art pieces. Also the influence of the futurists, particularly Giacomo Balla, can also be observed in her later works.

Favorite Work

My favorite work is actually the series she did titled Fragment in 1965. Although the whole series is comprised of only black and white, the shapes and designs are fascinating to me. When choosing my 10 images I had a hard time choosing which Fragment piece would be my example, but I ended up going with the one that’s actually the background on my computer. I’m a huge proponent to minimalism. Even though I appreciate and admire her optical works, as well as her colorful paintings and murals, I’m drawn to the complex simplicity of the series. She didn’t just go for one style yet the whole thing is somehow cohesive and brilliant. While the majority of the pieces contain straight and curved lines, there are a couple with dots which work just as successfully and are possibly even more powerful when you realize she usually didn’t work with dots at this point. She took an array simple shapes, lines and circles and put them together in a very complex and strategic way. Not only were the pieces themselves fascinating, but choosing to place them on plexiglass adds a whole other element to experience in person. Below I’ve compiled a few of my top choices from said series.