Bridget Riley: Working Drawings. Bridget Riley, Alexandra Tommasini, Rosa Gubay.
In English. Hardcover, 296 pages, 27 x 24.5 x 4.2 cm. Thames and Hudson / The Bridget Riley Foundation, 2021.
Bridget Riley's paintings are carefully developed over time, the result of methodical work with pictorial variables such as color, tone, scale, and rhythm. Studies are key in this process, allowing Riley to focus on the analysis and synthesis that are at the heart of her professional practice. Riley states, "Because my work is based on inquiry, studies are my primary method of exploration and my gateway to paintings" (2005).
This volume richly illustrates the thinking behind Riley's work through a selection of more than 150 drawings, colour analyses, annotations, scale studies and cartoons, most of which have been exhibited in the artist's recent retrospective exhibitions in Edinburgh and London, from 2019 to 2020, organized by the National Galleries of Scotland. The selection covers most of Riley's professional life, tracing the origins and evolving nature of his remarkable body of work. Riley's beginnings are also documented through selected drawings from his childhood, works made during and immediately after his studies at Goldsmiths' College and the Royal College of Art, and his early explorations into abstraction.
The artist's working method is highlighted in a recent conversation between Riley and Sir John Leighton, director of the National Galleries of Scotland.
