Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris


Bridget Riley was one of the pioneers of the Op Art movement and is one of Britain's best-loved artists. This retrospective traces how her first paintings, such as "Pink Landscape," were influenced by Impressionist artists such as Seurat and how, following this, she became interested in capturing the idea of movement in a strongly defined, abstract way. Her black-and-white paintings, such as "Movement in Squares" and "Blaze" from the 1960s, have become iconic. Of great interest are the preparatory drawings that explain how she arrived at her compositions.

The exhibition follows the various sequences of her career, and how she sought to create optical illusions that sometimes have a dizzying or hypnotic effect on the viewer. Indeed, her paintings of bright, vertical lines from the 1970s and 1980s become more entrancing the longer you stare at them. From these, she moved onto vertically arranged, diagonal stripes that in turn led to her paintings composed of graphic, swirling shapes, which she is still making today.

June 12 through September 14, 2008
Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
11, avenue du Président-Wilson
75016 Paris
T. +33 (0)1 53 67 40 00