Published on the occasion of Bridget Riley’s major exhibition at David Zwirner in London in the summer of 2014, this fully illustrated catalogue offers intimate explorations of paintings and works on paper produced by the legendary British artist over the past fifty years, focusing specifically on her recurrent use of the stripe motif. Riley has devoted her practice to actively engaging viewers through elementary shapes such as lines, circles, curves, and squares, creating visual experiences that at times trigger optical sensations of vibration and movement. The London show, her most extensive presentation in the city since her 2003 retrospective at Tate Britain, explored the stunning visual variety she has managed to achieve working exclusively with stripes, manipulating the surfaces of her vibrant canvases through subtle changes in hue, weight, rhythm, and density. As noted by Paul Moorhouse, “Throughout her development, Riley has drawn confirmation from Euge`ne Delacroix’s observation that ‘the first merit of a painting is to be a feast for the eyes.’ [Her] most recent stripe paintings are a striking reaffirmation of that principle, exciting and entrancing the eye in equal measure.” Created in close collaboration with the artist, the publication’s beautifully produced color plates offer a selection of the iconic works from the exhibition. These include the artist’s first stripe works in color from the 1960s, a series of vertical compositions from the 1980s that demonstrate her so-called “Egyptian” palette—a “narrow chromatic range that recalled natural phenomena”—and an array of her modestly scaled studies, executed with gouache on graph paper and rarely before seen. A range of texts about Riley’s original and enduring practice grounds and contextualizes the images, including new scholarship by art historian Richard Shiff, texts on both the artist’s wall paintings and newest body of work by Paul Moorhouse, 20th Century Curator at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and a 1978 interview with Robert Kudielka, her longtime confidant and foremost critic. Additionally, the book features little-seen archival imagery of Riley at work over the years; documentation of her recent commissions for St. Mary’s Hospital in West London, taken especially for this publication; and installation views of the exhibition itself, installed throughout the three floors of the gallery’s eighteenth-century Georgian townhouse located in the heart of Mayfair.

* Includes a selection of critical writings starting with David Sylvester's review of her first exhibition in 1962 and ending with Dave Hickey's foreword to her 2019 exhibition in LA* Featuring reviews, essays, statements and conversations that have been specially selected by the artist and include her own writings* This book marks the first major survey of Riley's work to be staged in Scotland and the first of its scale in the UK since 2003* Published to accompany an exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland from June until September 2019, and at the Hayward, London, October to January 2020This landmark book reflects on almost 70 years of works by Bridget Riley (b.1931), from some of her earliest to very recent projects, providing a unique record of the work of an artist still very much at the height of her powers. Essays from leading scholars and commentators on Riley's work will make this title the authority on Riley's practice. In the last decade, Riley has continued to push her practice considerably, producing several large-scale site-specific wall paintings as well as continuing to develop new paintings. This book will explore these recent developments. It will also examine the notable influence that other artists such as Georges Seurat and Piet Mondrian have had on Riley's work. Published to accompany an exhibition taking place in the National Galleries of Scotland, running from June - September 2019.

Bridget Riley’s explorations of perception through form and color have made her into one of the most significant painters working today. Since the early 1960s, she has used elementary shapes—lines, circles, curves, and squares—to create visual experiences that immediately draw the viewer in, often triggering optical vibrations and illusions. More recently, Riley has shifted back to black and white in her large-scale paintings, marking a departure from her recent colored stripe paintings and a return to the palette of some of her earliest works. Published on the occasion of her 2015 solo exhibition at David Zwirner, Bridget Riley: Works 1981–2015 presents paintings from the last thirty-four years of her career, including images of Rajasthan, a wall painting previously shown in Germany and England, and exhibited for the first time in New York. These dynamic reproductions begin with stripe paintings from the 1980s and end with a coda of sorts —a return to black and white that ties back to her work from the 1960s, but bear traces of Riley’s deep engagement with color in the interim. As critic Éric de Chassey puts it in his essay for Riley’s 2015 catalogue with Galerie Max Hetzler: “The black-and-white paintings not only enter into a dialogue with the 1960s works, but take stock of every painting experience Riley has created during a long career.” Also included is a selection of the artist’s works on paper; taken together, these complementary aspects of her practice over the past four decades reveal the astonishing variety she has achieved by developing and rediscovering different forms. An essay by art historian Richard Shiff helps contextualize the developments in Riley’s practice since the early 1980s, and further emphasizes her influence and lineage as a painter. Rounding out the publication are biographical notes by Robert Kudielka, one of the artist’s foremost critics. With a career spanning six decades, Bridget Riley remains one of the most exciting painters today, and Bridget Riley: Works 1981–2015 presents a selection of works from what may be her richest period to date.

Bridget Riley has pursued a course of rigorous abstraction for some 40 years, from her celebrated black and white Op Art works in the 1960s to the complex colour paintings of the 1990s. This volume contains an illuminating series of dialogues between Riley and well-known figures from the art world.

Bridget Riley: Flashback is the first in a new series of monographic Hayward Touring exhibitions from the Arts Council Collection. Each exhibition will bring together outstanding early works by high profile British artists, and set them against major recent works borrowed from the artists themselves. This book tracks Bridget Riley's career from its sensational beginnings in the early 1960s to the ambitious and powerful paintings and works on paper of recent years. It includes an essay by Michael Bracewell and a new piece of writing by the artist discussing the genesis of a key early painting, Movement in Squares (1961). A chronology illustrated with archive photographs and an illustrated inventory of works by the artist in UK public collections complete this rich survey. Published to accompany the exhibition Bridget Riley: Flashback touring in 2009/10 to Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery; and Southampton City Art Gallery.

This anthology includes the vast majority of significant essays on Bridget Riley written since 1999. This was a particularly fruitful period in the reception of her work, as the discourse broadened and her reputation as one of the most important painters of her generation solidified.The essays range from biographical and career overviews to detailed analysis of specific aspects or themes that occur throughout Riley's career. The selection reflects a rich body of work, which sustains the interest of important authors, as evidenced by multiple pieces by �ric de Chassey, Lynne Cooke, Robert Kudielka, Paul Moorhouse and Richard Shiff. Together, this volume of essays tells the story of an artist whose art has continuously evolved over nearly six decades.Most of the critical texts have been written in close consultation with the artist, the result of long conversations, studio visits and archive access. Largely commissioned on the occasion of particular exhibitions, these essays track and trace Riley's focus and influences at different moments in time. Each essay builds upon the next, with more recent authors clearly responding and referencing earlier discourse. The result is a collection of great breadth and cohesion.Featuring essays by 18 authors including Frances Spalding, Michael Bracewell, and Dave Hickey.