Firebird
Firebird
Signed Print
Bridget Riley
£35,000-£50,000Value
Indicator
$70,000-$100,000 Value Indicator
$60,000-$90,000 Value Indicator
¥320,000-¥460,000 Value Indicator
€40,000-€60,000 Value Indicator
$350,000-$500,000 Value Indicator
¥6,650,000-¥9,490,000 Value Indicator
$45,000-$60,000 Value Indicator
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
There aren't enough data points on this work for a comprehensive result. Please speak to a specialist by making an enquiry.
Medium: Screenprint
Edition size: 75
Year: 1971
Size: H 69cm x W 97cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
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Auction Results
| Auction Date | Auction House | Artwork | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 2023 | Forum Auctions London - United Kingdom | Firebird - Signed Print | |||
| October 2023 | Cheffins - United Kingdom | Firebird - Signed Print | |||
| October 2022 | Chorley’s - United Kingdom | Firebird - Signed Print | |||
| October 2021 | Christie's London - United Kingdom | Firebird - Signed Print | |||
| March 2021 | Sotheby's London - United Kingdom | Firebird - Signed Print | |||
| December 2019 | Bonhams New Bond Street - United Kingdom | Firebird - Signed Print | |||
| September 2019 | Christie's London - United Kingdom | Firebird - Signed Print |
Meaning & Analysis
Firebird, like the other works featuring stripes by pioneering British painter Bridget Riley, consists of vertical bands of colour in varying hues. One of the first prints in colour in Riley’s canon, Firebird occupies a significant place in her oeuvre. Displaying vertical, twisting bars of red, green and blue, separated by intervals of white space, in turn generate a powerful and spirited array of imagined colours for the viewer. This signed screen print was released in 1971 in an edition of 75.
Riley has previously suggested these horizontally-striped works should be read from left to right in order to fully appreciate the variations in tone between warmer and cooler hues. Each colour is selected in response to the colour it superposes: “I want to create a colour-form, not coloured forms”, Riley states. By varying the tones of the colours selected for Firebird, a rainbow effect emerges and the colours appear to blend and bleed into each other.
