Preface

The literature on Bridget Riley’s art is extensive. The reviews of her debut solo exhibition in 1962 were the first instalments in a wide-ranging discussion of her achievements that continues to the present. During the intervening six decades, in addition to exhibition reviews the bibliography has been swelled by numerous articles, exhibition catalogues, published interviews, anthologies containing essays by the artist herself and commentaries by art historians, as well as textbooks placing her work in a wider context. A comprehensive catalogue, The Complete Paintings, was published in 2018. Nor is the present book the first monograph on Riley. That accolade belongs to Maurice de Sausmarez, whose short but incisive publication Bridget Riley appeared in 1970, and contained two illuminating essays, a conversation with the artist and a biographical outline. Collectively, there is no shortage of reference material about Riley’s work. Why then, it may be asked, is another book needed?

The short answer is that, despite the proliferation of words about Riley’s art, there is a dearth of information about the artist herself. For those seeking biographical details, De Sausmarez’s outline of her life and the later notes compiled by Robert Kudielka are helpful sources. That said, the former is now out of print; the latter provides an up-to-date chronology, but, like De Sausmarez’s outline, its purpose is to give an overview of life and career events rather than to paint a portrait of the person. It could, of course, be argued that deeper insights into the individual are unnecessary because the work stands entirely on its own. I would dispute that view. While Riley’s paintings are certainly abstract and the perceptual experiences that they generate are self-contained, it would be a mistake to assume that their significance is only optical. In the present book my

The look, smell and feeling of a cornfield. Bridget Riley’s earliest memory is rooted in the intoxicating immediacy of nature. She was two years old. Enticed by the surrounding countryside, she had wandered out of the garden at Stonehouse Farm, the family’s home in Knockholt, a village in Kent. An expanse of brilliant yellow had attracted her attention and she sensed its seductive warmth. Accompanied by a small pet cocker spaniel, she began to explore the undergrowth. As she probed further, the two became enveloped.

Seen close up, the complex patterns formed by the entwined plants exercised a deepening fascination, and a dusty fragrance filled the air. The corn towered overhead. Within moments the child and the dog disappeared from view. At some point, Bridget’s mother Louise discovered their absence and a state of alarm ensued. Bridget and her pet were eventually found and the crisis passed. However, her parents had received a shock and her father Jack resolved to move the family to a new address, which hopefully would pose fewer temptations. For her part, Bridget was oblivious to the drama she had provoked. Instead, the experience was to become a deep-seated memory. For a moment she had luxuriated in the complete sensory arena she had discovered and briefly inhabited. Even at this early age the appearance of things had proved irresistible and entirely fulfilling. It was a prophetic confirmation of a life that would be spent in thrall to the experience of looking.

Engaging visually with the world has always been Riley’s abiding passion and, as this childhood encounter suggests, a major source of that preoccupation and pleasure has been her sustained involvement with landscape. One place in particular has been singularly important. The site experience gave her a maturity far beyond her years, and when James William eventually died, she was deeply affected. Bessy was overwhelmed and it fell to Louise to provide much-needed support and strength. A simple, private philosophy now asserted itself, as it would in later times of adversity. Essentially this involved making the best of things, never succumbing to self-pity. Throughout that period of suffering, she was sustained by her surroundings, the activity of walking and, above all, the enjoyment of looking. This profound visual engagement was central to her being, the source of her love of life and a passion she readily shared, first with Jack and later with her children. It would form the closest of bonds with her daughters, and for Bridget Riley it would be the inherited foundation of her life’s work.

Bridget Louise Riley was born on 24 April 1931 at her maternal grandparents’ home, Summerfield in Forest Hill. The birth took place in a four-poster bed. Louise had inherited her father’s interest in antique furniture, and this was the first item that Bridget’s parents had acquired following their marriage in autumn 1928. After the birth, Louise and Jack moved to Stonehouse Farm, the site of Bridget’s cornfield experience. No doubt wishing to continue the sense of rural existence Louise had left behind in Cornwall, they found what had previously been a simple farm labourer’s building. Alongside a liking for fine furniture and well-made things, from the outset Louise’s desire for contact with the land would exert an ongoing influence. The house in Knockholt stood at the top of a steep lane, and to reach their destination the couple had to push their recently acquired car up the final leg of the journey. As we have seen, their young daughter’s outdoor adventure suggests that this location was not ideal. Although Louise deeply valued their proximity to nature, she was mindful of her daughter’s tender years and caution prevailed. Two further moves ensued. At first they lived in a flat in Uxbridge, west London. Subsequently, they purchased The Corner House at Bushey Heath, near Harrow in Hertfordshire.

Living in these new surroundings, in autumn 1936 Bridget commenced her primary education at The School in Chiltern Avenue, Bushey, where she would remain for the next three years. The teaching there was based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of eurythmy in the early twentieth century. Steiner’s philosophy emphasised the importance of movement and gesture. In an educational context, this ethos was presented as a means of encouraging imaginative, expressive and cognitive development.

As the family settled into their new existence in Cornwall, the misgivings they had felt on arrival were tempered. Although living arrangements remained rudimentary, there was a growing awareness and appreciation of the wider situation. Louise rose to the occasion, making it clear to the children that living at Trevemedar presented a unique opportunity to experience a simpler way of life, without dependence on modern conveniences. They would just adapt, and in any case it was only ‘for the duration’, as it was called. That affirmative attitude was both reassuring and liberating. While there was no way of predicting the course of events, they were sustained by the hope that the enemy would be defeated, normality restored and eventually they would return to Lincolnshire. In the meantime, they would make the best of it. As things turned out, Bridget would spend the next four years in this location, and during that time they would all be affected by uncertain circumstances. In retrospect, buoyed by her mother and the collective experience they shared, she would draw upon her childhood in Cornwall as a source of profound spiritual nourishment.

At the outset, Jack was stationed in Norfolk where he underwent training. Equipment was in short supply, often to unintentionally comic effect. Officers were instructed to ‘cut a short stick and train with that’. Despite these logistical shortcomings, through the period of the so-called phoney war, when there was a lull in operations, he participated fully in the process of turning civilians into soldiers and was able to take leave in order to visit his exiled family on two occasions. Photographs taken during those precious sojourns, when the entire family was together, record happy times, despite the context in which they took place. In some of the snaps Jack is in mufti. Evidently relaxed, as ever his easy sense of humour lifted everybody’s spirits. In others, a more formal note is struck. Wearing uniform, he appears to be getting ready to return to his regiment. Unknown to all, on departing at the end of his second visit, he would not see his family again until after the end of the war.

But that lay in the future. In the meantime, Bridget experienced ‘radiant days’, and she later described their first summer at Trevemedar as one of ‘unearthly beauty’. This was the time when the full splendour of their surroundings made itself apparent, and her freedom to enjoy it was tasted in full. They took their meals out of doors, went on long walks and got to know the places that she would come to love. Each day was different and unique, each contributing to the new rhythm of their lives in which there was a growing awareness of the wonder and solace of looking. Riley later wrote a description of her experiences in Cornwall. In The Pleasures of Sight (1984) she recalled, ‘what I experienced there formed the basis of my visual life’.1 The tapestry of sensations that made up her existence at that time interweaves movement, colour, reflected light, shadow, shape, space, pattern, transparency, density, saturation and fragmentation. The following passage is a characteristically vivid account of things seen, savoured and precisely remembered:

Going up and down valleys and around twisting corners there was a constant interchange of horizon lines, cliff-tops and brows of hills – narrow slivers of colour rhythmically weaving and layering, edge against edge. And sometimes, on turning into a completely different aspect of the landscape, which – especially if the sun was behind –one encountered almost as though the new view was a monumental edifice, so flat and dense did the colour seem.2 the lives of many comrades. His subsequent experiences as a prisoner were no less awful, with ferocious searches, inspections and other cruel treatment common. He recalled that a continuous problem was that of persuading the younger men not to try to escape, there being no place to go. Throughout that time, the letters that Louise had continued to send all reached him, and he believed that they sustained him. But such revelations belonged to the future. For the moment, what mattered most was that he was safe.

After leaving the family behind at Trevemedar, Jack returned to duty. The war now entered a different phase. With escalating political tensions in the Far East, in late 1941 Jack was posted to Singapore, Britain’s principal military base in that area. Events moved quickly. On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked American and British bases in South-East Asia and the central Pacific, including the notorious onslaught at Pearl Harbor.