Bridget Riley: Learning from Seurat, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House. Strand, London WC2, until 17 January 2016

This marvellous exhibition elegantly shows how Seurat has been a major influence in Bridget Riley’s artistic output.

Bridget Riley
Copy after Seurat’s Bridge at Courbevoie, 1959
Oil on canvas
28 x 35 7/8 in
© Bridget Riley 2015. All rights reserved,
courtesy Karsten Schubert, London.

Fascinated by Seurat’s Bridge at Courbevoie at the Courtauld.  She copied it in 1959, not directly from the painting itself as she though it would be too intimidating but from an illustration of it in R H Wilenski’s book on Seurat.  Her version which normally hangs in her studio now hangs close by to the original in this show. The other paintings show how her distinctive style developed from her move to the abstract black and white pictures and then on to her famous stripe paintings where her use of coloured stripes broke new ground just as Seurat’s use of dots of colour had done in his time. Throughout her work there is reference to the tonal qualities and light found in Seurat.

Bridget Riley
Vapour, 1970
Acrylic on linen
37 3/4 x 35 3/8 in
© Bridget Riley 2015. All rights reserved,
courtesy Karsten Schubert, London.

courtauld.ac.uk