B.1931
Bridget Riley initially established her reputation in the 1960s when her bold black and white paintings were associated with Op art.
A tireless innovator, Riley has placed at the centre of her art the capturing of optical sensations, often derived from her experience of nature, such as the shaft of sunlight through tree branches. This perceptual abstraction has also been profoundly influenced by her appreciation of the great artists of the past, from Veronese and Titian to Cezanne and Seurat.
Bridget Riley
1931
Born in London
1939-1945
Spent childhood in Cornwall.
1946-48
Attended Cheltenham Ladies College
1949 - 1952
Attended Goldsmith's College, London
1952 - 1955
Attended Royal College of Art, London
1960
Taught at Hornsey College of Art
1959 - 1961
Taught at Loughborough College of Art
1962 - 1964
Taught at Croydon College of Art
1968
Won International Prize for painting at 34th Venice Biennial
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2007 - 2008
Bridget Riley: Recent Paintings and Gouaches, PaceWildenstein, Chelsea, New York
2007
Experiments in Abstraction, Andipa Gallery, London
2003
Bridget Riley, Tate Britain, London
Galerie Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland
2002
Bridget Riley: New Work, Museum Haus Esters and Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld, Germany
Riley: Recent Paintings and Gouaches, Galerie Michael Sturm, Stuttgart, Germany
2001-3
Bridget Riley: Complete Prints 1962-2001, National Touring Exhibition from the Hayward Gallery, London; Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull; Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow; Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal; Rugby Art Gallery and Museum; Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea; Firstsite, Colchester
2000-1
Bridget Riley: Reconnaissance, Dia Center for the Arts, New York
2000
Bridget Riley: New Paintings and Gouaches, Waddington Galleries, London
Bridget Riley: Paintings 1982-2000 and Early Works on Paper, Pace Wildenstein, New York
1999-2000
Bridget Riley: Selected Paintings 1961-1999, Kunstverein fur die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Dusseldorf
1999
Bridget Riley: Paintings from the 1960s and 70s, Serpentine Gallery, London
1998-9
Bridget Riley: Works 1961-1998, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria
1997
Bridget Riley: Paintings, Gouaches and Prints 1981-1986, Green On Red Gallery, Dublin
Riley, Karsten Schubert Gallery, London
1996
Bridget Riley: Recent Painting and Gouaches, Waddington Galleries and Karsten Schubert, London
Bridget Riley: Paintings and Gouaches 1980-1995, Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds
Bridget Riley: Gouches 1980-1995, British School at Rome, Italy
Bridget Riley, Museum fur moderne Kunst des Landkreis Cuxhaven, Otterndorf
1995
Bridget Riley: Recent Paintins and Gouaches, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge University, Cambridge
Bridget Riley: Recent Works: Paintings and Gouaches 1981-1995, Spacex Gallery, Exeter
Bridget Riley: Gouaches 1980-1995, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen, Scotland
1994
Bridget Riley: Six Paintings 1963-1993 from the Collection, Tate Gallery, London
1993
Bridget Riley: Colour Studies, Karsten Schubert, London
1992-3
Bridget Riley: Paintings 1982-1992, Kunsthalle Nurnberg; Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop; Hayward Gallery, London; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
1992
Bridget Riley: Works on Paper 1982-1881, Karsten Schubert, London
Bridget Riley: Paintings, Galerie Ascan Crone, Hamburg, Germany
1990
Bridget Riley, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
Bridget Riley, Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1989
Bridget Riley, Galerie und Edition Schlegl, Zurich, Switzerland
Bridget Riley: Works on Paper, Mayor Rowan Gallery, London
1988
Bridget Riley, Galerie Teufel, Cologne, Germany
1987
Bridget Riley, Galerie Konstructiv Tendens, Stockholm, Sweden
Bridget Riley, Galerie und Edition Schlegl, Zurich, Switzerland
1986-7
Bridget Riley, South Western Art Galleries Association in Scotland exhibition, Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr, Scotland
1986
Bridget Riley, Jeffrey Hoffeld Gallery, New York
1985
Bridget Riley: An Australian Context, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia
1984-5
Bridget Riley, Galerie Reckermann, Cologne, Germany
Working with Colour: Recent Paintings and Studies by Bridget Riley, Arts Council of Great Britain exhibition, D.L.I. Museum and Arts Centre, Durham; Huddersfield Art Gallery, Huddersfield; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull; City Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent; Usher Galleru, Lincoln; City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery; Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne; Castle Museum, Norwich; Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston; York City Art Gallery; Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield
1984
Bridget Riley: Project for the Royal Liverpool Hospital, Royal Institute of British Architects, London
1983
Bridget Riley: Paintings and Drawings 1981-83, Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1982
Bridget Riley: Gouaches, Juda Rowan Gallery, London
1981
Bridget Riley: Recent Paintings and Gouaches, Rowan Gallery and Warwick Arts Trust, London
1980-2
Bridget Riley: Silkscreen Prints 1986-78, Preston Hall Museum, Stockton-On-Tees; touring to venues in the UK
1980
Bridget Riley, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; touring to venues un the UK
1979
Bridget Riley: Drawings, Australian Galleries, Melbourne; Bonython Gallery, Adelaide, Australia
1978-80
Bridget Riley: Works 1959-78, British Council retrospective exhibition, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffall; Dallas Museum of Fine Art; Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
1978
Bridget Riley, Sydney Janis Gallery, New York
1977
Bridget Riley, Minami Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1976
Bridget Riley, Rowan Gallery, London
Bridget Riley, Coventry Gallery, Sydney, Australia
1975
Bridget Riley, Galerie Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland
Bridget Riley, Sydney Janis Gallery, New York
1973
Bridget Riley: Paintings and Drawings 1961-1973, Arts Council of Great Britain exhibition, Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester; Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield; D.L.I. Museum and Arts Centre, Durham; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; City Museum anf Art Gallery, Birmingham; Museum and Art Gallery, Letchworth; City Art Gallery and Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol
1972
Bridget Riley, Kunstverein Gottingen, Germany
Bridget Riley: Drawings, Rowan Gallery, London
1971
Bridget Riley: Drawings, Rowan Gallery, London
1970-1
Bridget Riley: Paintings and Drawings 1951-71, Arts Council of Great Britain retrospective exhibition, Kunstverein Hannover; Kunsthalle Bern; Kunsthalle Dusseldorf; Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, Turin; Hayward Gallery, London; National Gallery, Prague
1969
Bridget Riley, Rowan Gallery, London
Bridget Riley: Drawings, Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford; Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol; Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham
1968
Bridget Riley, Richard Feigen Gallery, New York
34th Venice Biennale, British Pavilion (with Philip King); touring to Stadtische Kunstgalerie, Bochum; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
1967
Bridget Riley, Richard Feigen Gallery, New YorkRiley, Robert Fraser Gallery, London
1966-7
Bridget Riley: Drawings, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; touring to venues in the United States
1966
Bridget Riley: Drawings, Richard Feigen Gallery, New York
Bridget Riley: Preparatory Drawings and Studies, Robert Fraser Gallery, London
1965
Bridget Riley, Richard Feigen Gallery, New York
Bridget Riley, Feigen-Palmer Gallery, Los Angeles
1963
Bridget Riley, GalleryOne, London
1962
Bridget Riley, GalleryOne, London
Group Exhibitions
2002-3
From Blast to Freeze: British Art in the 20th Century, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
2000-1
Beau Monde: Toward a Redeemed Cosmopolitanism, 4th International Biennale, Site Santa Fe, New Mexico
2000
Collection 2000, Tate Modern, London
Blue, New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK
1999-2000
Sublime: The Darkness and the Light - Works from the Arts Council Collection, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton; touring to venues in the UK
1999
'45-'49, Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge; touring to venues in the UK
1998
White Noise, Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland
1997
Treasure Island, Centro de Arte Moderna Jose de Azeredo Perdiago, Lisbon, Portugal
A Quality of Light, Tate Gallery, St. Ives, UK
1996
British Abstract Art III: Works on Paper, Flowers East, London
1995
Drawing the Line, South Bank Centre, London; Southampton City Art Gallery; Manchester City Art Gallery; Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
From Here, Waddington Galleries and Karsten Schubert Gallery, London
1994
Group Show, Karsten Schubert Gallery, London
1993
The Sixties Art Scene in London, Barbican Art Gallery, London
1992-3
Ready Steady Go: Paintings of the Sixties from the Arts Council Collection, South Bank Centre, London; touring to venues in the UK
1990
Kunstlerinnen des 20. Jahrhunderts, Museum Wiesbaden, Germany
1989
The Experience of Painting: Eight Modern Artists, South Bank Centre London, London; Lanig Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne; Mappin Art Gallery. Sheffield; City Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent
1988-9
Viewpoints: Postwar Painting and Sculpture from the Guggenheim Museum Collection and Major Loans, Guggenheim Museum, New York; touring to venues in the United States
1988
Exhibition Road: Painters at the Royal College of Art, Royal College of Art, London
1987
British Art in the 20th Century, Royal Academy, London; Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany
1986
The Heroic Sublime, Charles Cowles Gallery, New York
1985
Hayward Annual: 25 Years - Three Decades of Contemporary Art: The Sixties, the Seventies, the Eighties, Hayward Gallery, London
Annely Juda Fine Art
1984
A Different Climate, Kunsthalle, Dussledorf, Germany
Artists Design for Dance 1909-1984, Anorlfini Gallery, Bristol
1982
Aspects of British Art Today, Arts Council of Great Britain exhibition touring to Japan; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum; National Museum of Modern Art, Osaka; Fukoaka Art Museum; Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo
1979-80
Peter Moores Liverpool Project 5: The Craft of Art, Walker Gallery, Liverpool
1979
British Drawings since 1945 in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1978
The Mechanised Image, Arts Council of Great Britain exhibition, City Museum of and Art Gallery Portsmouth; touring to venues in the UK
Recent British Art, Nordiyllands Kunstmuseum, Aaolborg, Denmark
1977
Documenta VI, Kassel, Germany
Biennale de Paris, une anthologie:1959-1967, Paris, France
British Art of the '60s, Tate Gallery, London
Less is More, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
12th International Exhibition of Graphic Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Contemporary Drawing, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
1976
Art as Thought Process, 11th Biennale International d'Art, Palais de l'Europe, Menton, France
Contemporary British Art, Galleries of Cleveland Institute of Art, UK
Arte inglese oggi, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy
1975
Contemporary British Drawings, 12th Biennale de Sao Paulo, Brazil
From Britain '75, Taidehalli, Helsinki, Icleand
1974
British Painting '74, Hayward Gallery, London
Graveurs Anglais Contemporains, Musee d'Art et d'Histoire, Cabinet des Estampes, Geneva, Swizerland
1973
La peinture anglaise aujourd'hui, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
Moore to Gilbert and George, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
1972
8th International Print Biennale, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
1971
ROSC'71, Royal Dublin Society, Dublin, Ireland
1970
Contemporary Paintings from the Sebastian de Ferranti Collection, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1969
Phillip King: Beelden, Bridget Riley: Schilderijen en tekeningen, Museum Bonijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Contemporary Art: Dialogue between East and West, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
Marks on Canvas, Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund, und Kunstverein Hannover, Germany
Black White, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; touring to venues in the US
1968
The New Generation: Interim Exhibition, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
Britische Kunst Heute, Hamburger Kunstverein, Germany
European Painters of Today, Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris; touring to venues in the US
20th Century Art, Fondation Maeght, Saint Paul de Vence, France
New British Painting and Sculpture, organised by Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; touring to venues in the US and Canada
Plus by Minus: Today's Half Century, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
Junge Generation Grossbritannien, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, Germany
Education Authority Collection Part 2, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
Graphics Exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
Documenta IV, Kassel, Germany
British Artists: 6 Painters, 6 Sculptors, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; touring to venues in the US
1967
Drawing Towards Painting 2, Arts Council Collection, London; touring to venus in the UK
Op Art, Londonderru, Dublin and Belfast
British Drawings, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; touring to venues in the US
Premio International Escultura, Instituto di Tella, Buenos Aires
Acquisitions of the Sixties, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Recent British Painting from the Collection of Peter Struyvesant Foundation, New York, Tate Gallery, London
English and American Graphics '67 (from the MoMA, NY), Belgrade; touring to venues in Yugoslavia and Brussels
1966
Multiplicity, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, USA
Aspects of New British Art, Auckland; touring to venues in New Zealand and Australia
London under Forty, Galleria Milano, Milan, Italy
English Graphic Art, Galerie der Spiegel, Cologne, Germany
Painting and Sculpture 1966, Fireside Lounge Gallery, Univeristy of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA
1965-6
London: The New Scene, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; touring to venues in the US and Canada
1965
The Responsive Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; touring to venues in the US
John Moores Exhibition, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
The Great Society: A Sampling of Its Imagery, Arts Forum Inc., Haverfort, US
New York Collector Selects (Mrs Burton Tremaine), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, US
Pop and Op, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
4th Biennale des Jeunes Artistes, Paris, France
1964-5
Contemporary British Painting and Sculpture, Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, US
Motion and Movement, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, US
1964
The New Generation, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
Six Young Artisit, Arts Council of Great Britain exhibition; touring to venues in the UK
Nouvelle Tendance, Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, France
Marzotto Prize Exhibition, Italy; touring to venues in Europe
Painting and Sculpture of a Decade, 1954-1964, Tate Gallery, London
Carnegie International, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, US
YoungArtists Biennale, Toyko, Japan
1963
1962, One Year of British Art, Tooths Gallery, London
John Moores Exhibition, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1962
Towards Art?, Arts Council of Great Britain exhibition; touring to venues in the UK
1958
Diversion, South London Art Gallery, London
Some Contemporary British Painters, Wildenstein Galleries, London
1955
Young Contemporaries, RBA Galleries, London
Selected Collections
Austin Desmond Fine Art Collection, London
Berardo Collection, Hayward Gallery, London
British Council, UK
Dia Center for the Arts, New York
Helga and Edzard Reuter
Hoh Collection, Furth, Germany
Karsten Schubert Collection
Linda and William Hermann
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Museun of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, US
Museum of Modern Art Collection, New York
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, US
Neues Museum, Nuremberg, Germany
Pace Wildenstein, New York
Robert Sandelson Ltd, London
Sezon Museum of Modern Art, Kitasaku, Japan
Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, UK
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tate Collection, London
Thyssen-Bornemizsa Collection
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, US
Walker Center, Minneapolis
Werner and Gabrielle Merzbacher
Selected Publications
Cooke, L., & Elderfield, J., & Govan, M., Bridget Riley: Reconnaissance, Dia Center for the Arts, 2001
Follin, F., Embodied Visions: Bridget Riley, Op Art and the Sixties, Thames & Hudson, 2004
Krajweski, M., & Craig-Martin, M., & Gombrich, E.H., & Riley, B., & Stecker, R., Bridget Riley: Selected Paintings 1961-1999, Hatje Cantz, 2000
Kudielka, R. (ed.), The Eye's Mind: Bridget Riley - Collected Writings 1965-1999, Thames & Hudson, 1999
Kudielka, R., Robert Kudielka on Bridget Riley: Essay and Interviews 1972-2003, Ridinghouse, 2005
Moorehouse, P., Bridget Riley, Tate Publishing, 2003
Riley, B., Bridget Riley: Complete Prints 1962-2005, Ridinghouse, 2004