A New Exhibit Showcases the Mind-Bending Art of Bridget Riley

A central figure in the Op Art movement in the 1960s and ’70s, Bridget Riley is known for pictures that can provoke uncanny feelings in anyone who stares at them long enough. “No painter, dead or alive, has ever made us more aware of our eyes,” the art critic Robert Melville wrote in 1971, describing works that seemed to shift, vibrate or shimmer as they “release hitherto unknown energies from simple forms and flat color.” Today, the 91-year-old British painter is on a short list of top-selling living women artists, with one canvas commanding $5.2 million at auction earlier this year. The visual—and perhaps visceral—experience elicited by the at times dizzying effect of Riley’s imagery remains as potent as ever, says Jay Clarke, co-curator of a new solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago that brings together 90 works from Riley’s personal collection, dating from the 1940s to today. The Art Institute deliberately included few explanatory labels, Clarke says, noting that Riley’s images require viewers’ full attention for their effect to emerge. “She’s not one of those artists where you just glance at the work and move on. The pictures do move, but it takes time, and the longer you look, the more will come out.”   

Amy Crawford | | READ MORE

Amy Crawford is a Michigan-based freelance journalist writing about cities, science, the environment, art and education. A longtime Smithsonian contributor, her work also appears in CityLab and the Boston Globe.