Paintings 1963-2015

In this compact survey of Bridget Riley’s career, the dialogue between monochrome and color in the British artist’s work is explored over a span of 50 years through 2015 in essay and image. Accompanying the 2016 17 show at the Scottish National Gallery, the hardcover publication sports an Op Art cover and includes 30 illustrations of the artist s work and essays by art historians Eric de Chassey and Frances Spalding, as well as a historic interview by art critic Robert Kudielka. Together they contextualize Riley’s early developments and demonstrate how her latest paintings progress directly out of a rigorous engagement with color. Riley gained critical attention internationally for her black-and-white paintings during the mid-1960s, using elementary shapes to engage the eye by creating flux and rhythm within the pictorial field. Throughout the succeeding decades, Riley has continued her investigation into perception be it through rich colors or simple black and white.