Opens 17 January 2019
Annenberg Court
Admission free

A new large-scale wall painting by the British abstract artist Bridget Riley will go on display at the National Gallery in January 2019. Spanning 10 x 20 metres, the combination of coloured discs will be painted directly onto the surface of the Gallery’s Annenberg Court.

The title of the work, 'Messengers', is inspired by a phrase of the landscape painter, John Constable, referring to clouds in the sky, but might also be seen as an allusion to the numerous angels, harbingers of news, that populate the skies of so many National Gallery pictures.

A groundbreaking influence on the development and appreciation of contemporary art, Riley (born 1931) is one of the most important artists of her generation and has long associations with the National Gallery. As a teenager she copied Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?) (1433) as part of her portfolio when applying to Goldsmiths College, London, just after the end of the Second World War. The luminosity of Seurat’s great painting Bathers at Asnières (1884) in the Gallery’s collection became an object of pilgrimage throughout her student years.

From 1981 to 1988 Bridget Riley served as a Trustee of the National Gallery and after leaving continued to support the campaign to retain free entrance. In 1989 Riley was invited to select that year’s 'Artist’s Eye' exhibition and between 2010 and 2011 the Gallery staged her acclaimed exhibition 'Bridget Riley: Paintings and Related Work'.

Bridget Riley says: “I was delighted to be asked by the Director, Gabriele Finaldi, to make this wall painting for the National Gallery in the Annenberg Court. I have been an assiduous visitor since childhood and I have the profoundest affection for the Gallery. It has been a guiding star for me, its pictures like a compass, sources of instruction and inspiration.”

Photo: Bridget Riley. Image courtesy of the Bridget Riley Archive

15th June to 22nd September 2019
Royal Scottish Academy, The Mound, Edinburgh EH2 2EL
Telephone 0131 624 6200 | nationalgalleries.org
Admission tbc
#NGSRiley

Bridget Riley will be the first major survey of Riley’s work to be held in the UK for 16 years, and the first of its scale to be staged in Scotland. Organised by the NGS in close collaboration with the artist herself, and presented in partnership with Hayward Gallery, London, the exhibition will be shown first in Edinburgh, in the Royal Scottish Academy, from June to September 2019, before travelling to Hayward Gallery in London, where it will be shown from October 2019 until January 2020.

The exhibition will place particular emphasis on the origins of Riley’s work, and will trace pivotal, decisive moments in her acclaimed career. It will feature early paintings and drawings, iconic black-and-white paintings of the 1960s, expansive canvases in colour, wall paintings and recent works, as well as studies that reveal Riley’s working methods.

The exhibition will bring together some 50 major paintings from public and private collections around the world, as well as a large number of works on paper, including a selection of works from Riley’s student years and childhood, many of which are being shown for the first time.

Speaking about the exhibition, Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art at the NGS, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to be bringing together so many major paintings from across Riley’s long and distinguished career to show the radical development and constant creative evolution of work by an artist who has been at the forefront of the international avant-garde since the early 1960s. In pioneering such a distinctive body of work, Riley has expanded the possibilities for painting, as she has profoundly changed the way we think about – and look at – art.”

Pictured: Blaze I, 1962 © Bridget Riley, Private collection, on long-term loan to the National Galleries of Scotland.

Robert Kudielka with Alexandra Tommasini and Natalia Naish

Compiled with the input of the artist herself, the landmark publication Bridget Riley: The Complete Paintings brings together over 650 of Riley’s works made on canvas, board, and the wall, as well as major large-scale commissions from the late 1940s to 2017.This ambitious and important publication reveals Riley’s achievement in all its richness and rigour, surveyable in five extensive volumes containing over 850 high quality illustrations. Rarely seen works – including those in private collections – are now presented alongside more familiar works, providing an unprecedented view of the artist’s monumental body of work.

Edited by Robert Kudielka, Alexandra Tommasini and Natalia Naish, and benefitting from the remarkable guidance of the artist, the publication offers the first comprehensive overview of the artist’s oeuvre to date, and includes many previously unpublished works. The first four volumes trace the development of Riley’s work between 1959 and 2017 and are followed by a final volume that presents a special selection of early works. Each painting entry is illustrated with high quality reproductions, many of which have been newly commissioned, or sourced from the artist’s rarely published archive. Notes on select works written in close consultation with the artist, an introductory text, an essay on studios, materials and methods, and an illustrated biography provide illuminating supporting material, whilst an engaging collection of photographs reveal Riley’s working life.

Elegantly designed, each clothbound hardcover volume is printed in one of five colours based on the artist’s early Egyptian Stripe paintings of the 1980s and the iconic 1961 painting Kiss is reproduced on the slipcase.

Bridget Riley: The Complete Paintings is available online through Thames & Hudson.
ISBN: 978-0500970898
5 volumes, slipcased
Editors: Robert Kudielka with Alexandra Tommasini and Natalia Naish
Pages: 1,848
Dimensions: 330 × 254mm
Imprint: The Bridget Riley Art Foundation and Thames & Hudson Ltd

Anna Harding

The unique contribution made by SPACE to the city is that artist founders Bridget Riley and Peter Sedgley negotiated vast amounts of space for creativity through legitimate means. They persuaded authorities and landlords to lease them property to which the artists brought new life and creative uses. Many have subsequently benefitted from the example set.

This timely book celebrates the contribution of this artist-run initiative to London. The focus is on 1968-75, when SPACE and its sister organisation AIR came into fruition, a period which has much influence for artists and policy today. The story of SPACE is relevant to artists in cities across the world who face challenges of working in ever-more expensive and congested cities.

Essays by artists Bridget Riley and Peter Sedgley, plus Mel Dodd, Will Fowler, Larne Abse Gogarty, Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt, Robert Kudielka, Courtney J. Martin, Alicia Miller, David Morris, Neil Mulholland, Naomi Pearce, Ana Torok and Andrew Wilson.

Artists in the City was published by SPACE and supported by The Bridget Riley Art Foundation, Cockayne, and The London Community Foundation. The publication is available for purchase from SPACE.
ISBN: 978-1-9999278-0-6
Softcover book
Authors: Mel Dodd, Will Fowler, Larne Abse Gogarty, Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt, Robert Kudielka, Courtney J. Martin, Alicia Miller, David Morris, Neil Mulholland, Naomi Pearce, Bridget Riley, Peter Sedgley, Ana Torok and Andrew Wilson
Editor: Anna Harding
Pages: 288
Dimensions: 230 × 168mm
Imprint: SPACE

Jenny Harper, Richard Shiff, Paul Moorhouse, Eric de Chassey and Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley: Cosmos was published alongside an exhibition of the same name held at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, New Zealand. The exhibition summarised some sixty years of committed practice by Riley, from a 1959 copy of Georges Seurat’s The Bridge at Courbevoie to her 2017 wall painting Cosmos, which was the fourth of five major works acquired by the gallery to mark their extended period of closure following the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010–11.

Bridget Riley: Cosmos is available for purchase from Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu.
ISBN: 978-1-9998539-0-7
Softcover book
Authors: Jenny Harper, Richard Shiff, Paul Moorhouse, Eric de Chassey and Bridget Riley
Features: French flaps
Pages: 120
Dimensions: 210 × 210mm
Imprint: The Bridget Riley Art Foundation

In October 2016, Bridget Riley and the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague unveiled a new work, 'Dance', which will be a permanent feature of the museum's reception area. Museum Director Benno Tempel said of the work that "We are enormously proud that Bridget Riley accepted this commission - a top international artist whose work is closely related to Mondrian's - and with such spectacular result! It's a dream come true." (www.artlyst.com)

The work took three years to complete and continues a tradition of artists, including Sol LeWitt and Niele Toroni, creating new work specifically for the Gemeentemuseum.

'Sonnet' is a work on paper that complements 'Dance' and is available in a limited number. More information.

Photo credit: Dance, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, 2016. Photo Studio Gerrit Schreurs.