Bridget Riley: Starting Point

Artist: Bridget Riley
Curators: Sylvain Amic, Nicolas Gausserand

A leading figure in Op Art, Bridget Riley, born in London in 1931, sees her career shaped by an encounter with the work of Georges Seurat. At the Musée d’Orsay, this exhibition highlights the profound legacy of the post-impressionist master on her practice. Riley recalls the shock of discovering “A Sunbather at Asnières” at the National Gallery in London. In 1959 she made a free copy of “The Bridge at Courbevoie”, based only on a reproduction, a gesture that proved decisive: “Copying Seurat allowed me to understand pictorial thinking. I observed his work, analysed it, and then adapted it to my own means.” This moment opened new ways of seeing and painting, influencing the optical explorations that would define her work.

Over the decades, Seurat’s influence resurfaces in Riley’s practice. His use of colour, light, and structure informs her compositions, where rhythm and perception are constantly redefined. The exhibition brings together Riley’s hypnotic paintings and their dialogue with Seurat’s innovations, tracing how pointillism and pictorial analysis evolve into vibrant optical fields. Riley herself acknowledges this persistent presence: “What I learned from Seurat comes back to me in different forms, again and again. My copy of ‘The Bridge at Courbevoie’ still hangs in my studio.” The display offers a rare chance to understand the origins of her visual language and the continuity of influence across time.