Bridget Riley
Biography
Bridget Riley is an English painter widely regarded as a pioneer of Op Art, known for her innovative use of color, pattern, and optical effects. Born in London in 1931, she spent part of her childhood in Cornwall during World War II. Riley studied at Goldsmiths' College and the Royal College of Art, where she initially focused on impressionistic landscapes before turning toward abstraction in the 1960s. Riley rose to international prominence through her black-and-white paintings that explored the dynamic interaction between form and perception. Using parallel stripes, wavy lines, and concentric patterns, she created disorienting visual experiences that challenged the stability of the viewer’s gaze.
Her work was central to the Op Art movement, particularly after her inclusion in the landmark exhibition The Responsive Eye at MoMA, New York, in 1965. In the 1970s, Riley expanded her practice to include color, inspired in part by travels to India, Japan, and China, where she studied traditional visual cultures. Her later paintings introduced vibrant, rhythmic color fields that deepened her investigations into visual perception and spatial experience. Major exhibitions of her work have been held at institutions such as Tate Britain, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the National Gallery in London. Notable recent shows include a major retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (2019) and her exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London (2019–2020). Riley has received numerous accolades, including the Sikkens Prize, the Goslar Kaiserring, and the Praemium Imperiale. She is also a member of the Royal Academy of Arts and the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Today, Riley continues to live and work between London, Cornwall, and Vaucluse in France. Her legacy is profound in that she has fundamentally transformed the way artists and audiences understand visual experience, and her work continues to inspire and challenge new generations.
