Bridget Riley

British, b.1931

Bagatelle 3

  • 2015
  • Screen print on paper
  • Gift of the artist, 2016
  • 727 x 645mm
  • 2016/074

Bridget Riley’s self-effacing title for this work – a bagatelle is something seen as a trifle, too easy to be considered profound – underplays the complexity of this lively composition. It also alludes to it being effectively an extracted section of a larger and pivotal early work – Tremor, painted in 1962. Even in this abridged form it is a visual brain teaser, almost an IQ puzzle, inviting the viewer to find rhythm in its sequence of pattern and line.

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )