Bridget Riley: Flashback20 Aug 2009
Walker Art Gallery 25 September to 13 December 2009A major exhibition that tracks the career of Bridget Riley, from her exciting beginnings in the early 1960s to the ambitious and powerful works of recent years, opens at the Walker Art Gallery from 25 September to 13 December 2009. Bridget Riley: Flashback is the first in a major new series of touring exhibitions from the Arts Council collection, Southbank Centre. Riley’s distinctive and optically vibrant paintings generate extraordinary sensations of movement, light and space. Eight large scale paintings will be on show, with four coming from Riley’s personal collection. Alongside these are aound 30 drawings and studies that illuminate her working methods over her five-decade-long-career. Many of these will be exhibited for the first time. Reyahn King, director of art galleries says:
The exhibition is also an insight into the role of the Arts Council collection in supporting British artists and collecting the art treasures of the future. A seminal work in the show is Movement in Squares, which was purchased by the Arts Council Collection in 1962, the year after it was made. Consistently exhibited in retrospectives of her work, she credits the work as the beginning of her breakthrough into abstraction. Riley sees a direct correlation between her extensive studies in drawing from life and the development of this work, which allowed her to ‘trust the eye at the end of my pencil.’ An illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition with new text by the artist that is a very personal account of her approach to making work. This is the first text written by Riley about her work in many years. Also included is an essay by Michael Bracewell and a unique list of all works by Bridget Riley held in public collections in the UK – demonstrating how Riley’s work has been collected throughout the country for more than five decades. An Arts Council Collection exhibition from Southbank Centre, London. Notes for editorsArtist information and images are available on request. Bridget Riley: Flashback is accompanied by a catalogue that includes commissioned essays by Michael Bracewell and Bridget Riley. Price: 14.99 (tbc) ISBN: 978 1 85332 280 8 Flashback is a major new series of touring exhibitions from the Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre. Taking as its starting point the Collection’s founding principle of supporting emerging artists through the purchase of their work; the series showcases world-renowned British artists whose works were acquired early on by the Collection. Each monographic exhibition combines early Collection works with new pieces sourced from the artists, giving a unique insight into the evolution of these key figures in British art. The Arts Council Collection was formed in 1946 by the Arts Council of Great Britain and has been managed by the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre since 1987. From the outset, the intention was to support artists living and working in Britain through the purchase and display of their work, and to tour exhibitions across the country to encourage public appreciation of modern and contemporary art. This makes it the widest circulated collection of its kind. The Walker Art Gallery is the national gallery of the North. For 130 years it has housed Liverpool’s most outstanding art collection. Highlights include the European Old Masters, such as Simone Martini’s Christ Discovered in the Temple, one of the oldest signed paintings in the country, as well as work by Rubens, Stubbs and Cezanne. There is an extensive display of artefacts and sculptures including Gibson’s The Tinted Venus. Modern British works from Hockney to Gilbert and George are well represented, thanks in no small part to the biennial John Moores painting prize, Britain’s largest and most important open painting competition. Bridget Riley: Flashback opens at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (25 September – 13 December 2009) and tours to Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (6 February – 23 May 2010), Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery (5 June – 5 September) and Southampton City Art Gallery (17 September – 5 December). All of these museums have works by Bridget Riley in their own collections. Please contact: Laura Johnson in the press office for more information on this release. Find out moreNational Museums Liverpool is not responsible for the content of external websites. |