An installation view of a mural by Bridget Riley, titled Intervals Wall Painting, dated 2021.
A detail from a work by Bridget Riley, titled Measure for Measure 45, dated 2020.

Bridget Riley: Past into Present

David Zwirner is pleased to present Past into Present, paintings by Bridget Riley (b. 1931), in the gallery’s Grafton Street location in London. The exhibition principally features work by Riley from the last two years, with reference to the work of the past, both in her own practice and in the art of painting itself.

Over the course of her more than six-decade career, Riley has frequently returned to earlier ideas and even to specific works in order to identify alternative directions that a form could take. As she has noted, ‘I am sometimes asked “What is your objective” and this I cannot truthfully answer. I work “from” something rather than “towards” something. It is a process of discovery.’

 

The exhibition includes an extension of the Measure for Measure series of paintings, advanced first through the addition of a fourth colour—turquoise—and then through a deepening of tone in the new Measure for Measure Dark paintings. These developments enrich the viewer’s enjoyment, giving them something more to look at.

 

On the occasion of the exhibition, a monograph is forthcoming from David Zwirner Books, featuring new scholarship by art historian Éric de Chassey. 

 

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Image: Bridget Riley, Intervals Wall Painting, 2021

 

Planning Your Visit

The gallery is open to the public with a limited number of visitors allowed into the exhibition spaces at a time. Advance appointments are recommended.

Wearing masks in the gallery is required. 

To schedule your visit, please click here.

An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

“I'm a painter first and foremost. I explore and I try and understand and try to find out what I can look at, what can be seen.”

—Bridget Riley in conversation with Kirsty Wark for the BBC, 2021

Hear the artist discuss her current exhibition and share insights into her more than six decade career in the full video interview here.

 

An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

“The Measure for Measure series is proof that Riley is now able, through careful and intuitive placement of each greyed colour in an extremely regular composition, made of identical shapes, to work with separate forms that never relinquish their identity while never destroying the unity of the whole..”

—Éric de Chassey, “The Pleasures on Perception”, in Bridget Riley: Measure for Measure. New Disc Paintings, 2018

 


A painting by Bridget Riley, titled Intervals Wall Painting, dated 2021.

Bridget Riley

Intervals Wall Painting, 2021
Acrylic paint on plaster wall
59 x 389 3/4 inches (150 x 990 cm)
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

“Riley’s practice of colour requires neither theory nor religion as its justification. Often, effects of nature inspire her; but her work is not their illustration.”

—Richard Shiff, “The Unaccountable”, in Bridget Riley: The Stripe Paintings 1961–2014, 2014

 

An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

“I see my work differently as time goes by. I’ve realized... that it communicates, that my own dialogue with my work is reflected in how other people actually look at it.... This to me is the most wonderful thing.”

—Bridget Riley in conversation with Sir John Leighton on the occasion of her solo exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland, 2019. Watch the full interview here.

 

An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

Installation view, Bridget Riley: Past into Present, David Zwirner, London, 2021

 

Bridget Riley in her London studio, 2017

Bridget Riley in her London studio, 2017

 

Bridget Riley in her London studio, 2017

 

Inquire about works by Bridget Riley

An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
An installation view of the exhibition Bridget Riley: Past into Present at David Zwirner in London, dated 2021.
A painting by Bridget Riley, titled Measure for Measure 49, dated 2020.

Bridget Riley

Measure for Measure 49, 2020
Acrylic on linen
61 x 61 inches (155 x 155 cm)
Two paintings by Bridget Riley, titled Measure for Measure 51 and 46, dated 2020.

Bridget Riley

Measure for Measure 51 and 46, 2020
Acrylic on linen
Each: 61 x 61 inches (155 x 155 cm)
A painting by Bridget Riley, titled Measure for Measure Dark 2, dated 2019.

Bridget Riley

Measure for Measure Dark 2, 2019
Acrylic on linen
54 7/8 x 54 7/8 inches (139.5 x 139.5 cm)
A painting by Bridget Riley, titled Measure for Measure Dark 3, dated 2019.

Bridget Riley

Measure for Measure Dark 3, 2019
Acrylic on linen
54 3/4 x 54 3/4 inches (139 x 139 cm)
A painting by Bridget Riley, titled Intervals 12, dated 2021.

Bridget Riley

Intervals 12, 2021
Oil on linen
104 x 74 5/8 inches (264.2 x 189.5 cm)
A painting by Bridget Riley, titled Intervals 13, dated 2021.

Bridget Riley

Intervals 13, 2001
Oil on linen
103 7/8 x 74 1/2 inches (264 x 189.2 cm)
A painting by Bridget Riley, titled Static 5, dated 2021.

Bridget Riley

Static 5, 2021
Acrylic on linen
53 5/8 x 53 5/8 inches (136.3 x 136.3 cm)
A painting by Bridget Riley, titled Static 6, dated 2021.

Bridget Riley

Static 6, 2021
Acrylic on linen
53 5/8 x 53 5/8 inches (136.3 x 136.3 cm)
A painting by Bridget Riley, titled Measure for Measure Dark with Turquoise 5, dated 2021.

Bridget Riley

Measure for Measure Dark with Turquoise 5, 2021
Acrylic on linen
36 3/8 x 61 inches (92.5 x 155 cm)
A painting by Bridget Riley, titled Measure for Measure 40, dated 2019.

Bridget Riley

Measure for Measure 40, 2019
Acrylic on linen
41 3/4 x 90 7/8 inches (106 x 230.7 cm)

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