The strong diagonal emphasis could also be found in the much earlier Cataract and Arrest paintings of the late 1960s, but whilst those works had concentrated on disturbing the perceived surface as one layer, the paintings of 1987 onwards create a much greater sense of regression and progression, the diagonal forms appearing to both pass in front of and behind the vertical structure of the painting. This ambiguity of space, always a concern of Riley, is now developed further than in any previous works, the viewer now being less a spectator of the image being unfolded before them than an active participant in an image which constantly rearranges itself in a form that is virtually impossible to define.

Riley’s interest in the possibility of the diagonal in a composition at this time was perhaps highlighted by her selection of works for the 1989 Artist’s Eye exhibition at the National Gallery, London. Selected from the permanent collection, Riley’s choices included large compositions by Titian, Veronese, Cezanne, Rubens and El Greco, all of which were built around underlying diagonal emphases.

BRIDGET RILEY CBE
b. London 1931

Born in London in 1931, Bridget Riley spent most of her childhood in Cornwall near Padstow in a cottage with her Mother, Aunt and younger sister, her father being away in the armed forces during the War. From 1946-48 she was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College, where she was introduced by her teacher Colin Hayes to the history of painting and encouraged to attend a local life class. Riley went on to study at Goldsmith’s College of Art from 1949-52 under Sam Rabin and then at the RCA from 1952-5 at the same time as Frank Auerbach, Peter Blake, Joe Tilson and John Bratby.

A long period of unhappiness followed her graduation from the RCA as Riley nursed her father after a serious car accident and subsequently suffered a nervous breakdown. After a number of jobs she joined the J Walter Thompson advertising agency.

In 1959 Riley took part in a summer school in Suffolk organised by Harry Thubron, and met Maurice de Sausmarez, who became her friend and mentor, going on to write the first monograph of her work. On tour in Italy in the summer of 1960, Riley painted Pink Landscape, 1960, a key piece in her early development. Having broken with Sausmarez and suffered an artistic crisis, her attempts to create an entirely black painting produced her first black-and-white works. She held her first solo show 1962 at Gallery One, London and won the International Prize for painting at the 34th Venice Biennale in 1968, the first British contemporary painter and first woman ever to win.

The work of Bridget Riley is represented in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The British Council, the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, the Berardo Collection, Sintra Museum of Modern Art, Lisbon, the Arts Council Collection, Hayward Gallery, London, the Tate, London, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Neues Museum, Nurnberg, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and the Sezon Museum of Modern Art, Kitasaku.