Comparative Study using Blue, Olive and Cerise with Greys

Location

Country: Luxembourg
City: Luxembourg
Place: British Embassy

The curved vertical stripes in this work on paper by Bridget Riley evoke an image of a twisting stream of water, or perhaps a section of a waterfall cascading from a great height. An affinity with the flow of water is closely linked to this and to many of Riley’s paintings and drawings. Although composed vertically, the undulating lines in the work featured here can also be read as gentle waves of water overlapping each other on the surface of the sea. Between the ages of eight and fourteen, during the Second World War, Riley lived next to the sea in Cornwall with her mother and sister. She has vivid early memories of swimming in the sea and of this whole period she recalls that it ‘… should have been a miserable time, but it wasn’t’. The muted colours in Comparative Study using Blue, Olive and Cerise with Greys is in contrast to many of Riley’s earlier works of the 1960s. By the middle of that decade, her work had come to international prominence through exhibitions of dazzling black and white paintings such as Movement in Squares (1961, Arts Council), the result of her exploration of visual perception in painting.

Bridget Riley was born in London and studied at Goldsmiths College and the Royal College of Art, London, in the 1950s. In 1965, her work came to international attention following her participation in the acclaimed Op Art exhibition 'The Responsive Eye', at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1968, Riley became the first contemporary British artist, and the first woman, to win the International Prize at the Venice Biennale. She went on to exhibit and travel widely around the world during the 1970s and ‘80s. Her exploration of the relationships between colour, form and her perception of the natural world continue to be central to her work today. Riley was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1999 with a major retrospective of her work held at the Tate in 2003. Riley has written extensively about her work, including 'The Eye’s Mind: Bridget Riley: Collected Writings 1965–2009', co-authored with Robert Kudielka. In 2012, Riley was officially awarded the 12th Rubens Prize from the city of Siegen, Germany, an award presented every five years to a painter living in Europe in honour of their lifetime artistic accomplishment. In 2016, a year-long major exhibition celebrating 50 years of painting by Riley opened at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. A full retrospective of Riley’s paintings, prints and drawings opened at the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh in the summer of 2019, travelling on to the Hayward Gallery, London, that autumn.

Places

Subjects

abstract

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), board, gouache (as artists material), gouache (as object name)

Artist

Bridget Riley (1931 - )

Title

Comparative Study using Blue, Olive and Cerise with Greys

Date

1975

Medium

Gouache on paper, mounted on board

Dimensions

height: 154.00 cm, width: 57.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Rowan Gallery, February 1976

Inscription

bl: Comparative study using Blue, Olive and Cerise with Greys ; br: Bridget Riley - '75

GAC number

12208