Contemporary Print Market Report

bridget riley

Bridget
Riley

A pioneer of modern, abstract painting and head of the British Op-Art movement, Bridget Riley's works have expanded the perceptual and optical possibilities of art. Interested in buying or selling a Riley original print or edition? Browse artworks from the artist's portfolio and enquire today. We provide print value advice and market consultancy, with zero obligation to sell.

Notable collections

Stripes

14 works

Composition With Circles

5 works

Waves

7 works

Lozenges

22 works

Bagatelle

3 works

Fragment

7 works

Zig / Rhomboid

6 works

Buy and sell Bridget Riley prints

Search artwork title

Magenta And Green Signed Print

Bridget Riley

£6,000-£8,000 VALUE (EST.)

AUD10,000-AUD15,000 VALUE (EST.)

CAD9,000-CAD10,000 VALUE (EST.)

CNY45,000-CNY60,000 VALUE (EST.)

€7,000-€9,000 VALUE (EST.)

HKD50,000-HKD70,000 VALUE (EST.)

¥930,000-¥1,240,000 VALUE (EST.)

$7,000-$9,000 VALUE (EST.)

Elongated Triangles (AP) Signed Print

Bridget Riley

£12,000-£18,000 VALUE (EST.)

AUD20,000-AUD30,000 VALUE (EST.)

CAD20,000-CAD25,000 VALUE (EST.)

CNY90,000-CNY140,000 VALUE (EST.)

€15,000-€20,000 VALUE (EST.)

HKD100,000-HKD150,000 VALUE (EST.)

¥1,870,000-¥2,800,000 VALUE (EST.)

$15,000-$20,000 VALUE (EST.)

Arcadia 6 Signed Print

Bridget Riley

£6,000-£8,000 VALUE (EST.)

AUD10,000-AUD15,000 VALUE (EST.)

CAD9,000-CAD10,000 VALUE (EST.)

CNY45,000-CNY60,000 VALUE (EST.)

€7,000-€9,000 VALUE (EST.)

HKD50,000-HKD70,000 VALUE (EST.)

¥930,000-¥1,240,000 VALUE (EST.)

$7,000-$9,000 VALUE (EST.)

Untitled (Based On Movement In Squares) Signed Print

Bridget Riley

£30,000-£45,000 VALUE (EST.)

AUD50,000-AUD80,000 VALUE (EST.)

CAD50,000-CAD70,000 VALUE (EST.)

CNY250,000-CNY380,000 VALUE (EST.)

€35,000-€50,000 VALUE (EST.)

HKD280,000-HKD420,000 VALUE (EST.)

¥4,980,000-¥7,470,000 VALUE (EST.)

$35,000-$50,000 VALUE (EST.)

Leap Signed Print

Bridget Riley

£6,000-£8,000 VALUE (EST.)

AUD10,000-AUD15,000 VALUE (EST.)

CAD9,000-CAD10,000 VALUE (EST.)

CNY45,000-CNY60,000 VALUE (EST.)

€7,000-€9,000 VALUE (EST.)

HKD50,000-HKD70,000 VALUE (EST.)

¥930,000-¥1,240,000 VALUE (EST.)

$7,000-$9,000 VALUE (EST.)

Large Fragment 2 Signed Print

Bridget Riley

£20,000-£30,000 VALUE (EST.)

AUD35,000-AUD50,000 VALUE (EST.)

CAD30,000-CAD50,000 VALUE (EST.)

CNY170,000-CNY250,000 VALUE (EST.)

€25,000-€35,000 VALUE (EST.)

HKD190,000-HKD280,000 VALUE (EST.)

¥3,360,000-¥5,030,000 VALUE (EST.)

$25,000-$35,000 VALUE (EST.)

Untitled (blue) Signed Print

Bridget Riley

£9,000-£15,000 VALUE (EST.)

AUD15,000-AUD25,000 VALUE (EST.)

CAD15,000-CAD20,000 VALUE (EST.)

CNY70,000-CNY120,000 VALUE (EST.)

€10,000-€15,000 VALUE (EST.)

HKD80,000-HKD130,000 VALUE (EST.)

¥1,400,000-¥2,330,000 VALUE (EST.)

$10,000-$15,000 VALUE (EST.)

The
MyArtbroker advantage

We offer 0% sellers fees, a global network of online buyers, and a network of industry specialists, so you don’t have to shop around to get a better deal.

Submission takes less than 2 minutes & there's zero obligation to sell

0% Seller's feesfree valuationsauthenticity guaranteeindependent adviceno unsold feesleading market intelligence

Biography

Op Art luminary Bridget Riley plays with optical and chromatic phenomena and is a central figure in modern and abstract art. Imploring the viewer to consider how it physically feels to look, Riley constructs geometric patterns which cause perceptual disruption.

Born in Norwood, London, in 1931, Riley's early biography sees her spend most of her childhood in Cornwall and Lincolnshire, going on to study at the Royal College of Art from 1952 to 1955. Initially painting figurative subjects in a semi-Impressionist manner, everything about Riley’s style evolved in the 1960s when she developed the iconic style she is known for today and began to dominate the Op Art scene in Britain. Op Art explored the dynamic potentialities of optical phenomena and created works that produced a disorientating, dizzying effect on the eye – an effect that has become emblematic of a Riley artwork. Deceptively simple from the beginning, Riley’s jazzy, psychedelic work continues to define contemporary British art.

Riley’s career and success took off at the start of the 1960s. The game changer, as she admits, was her 1961 Movement in Squares. This painting was a ground-breaking moment for the artist, as it marked the start of her journey towards the geometric patterns that define her oeuvre. With its endless dizzying and mesmerising effects, her Movement in Squares set the tone for her future masterpieces.

A second watershed in her career, in 1967 her Stripes series officially introduced colour to Riley’s previously monochromatic black and white works. The stability of the repeated stripe form enabled Riley to explore the visual effects of colour and varying colour combinations in greater depth, expanding her compositions' perceptual and optical possibilities. Distinctive and optically vibrant, the Stripes series is truly iconic.

Following Riley’s precipitous rise to fame, the fashion industry quickly appropriated her zingy geometric designs. Concerned this would damage her artistic reputation, Riley was perturbed. However, as the artist continued to innovate and expand the bounds of her painting formally, her reputation never suffered. Riley progressed to having her first major solo exhibition in 1971 at the Hayward Gallery. Featuring one of her earliest works, the gallery continues to foster a relationship with Riley, presenting the 2019-20 Bridget Riley exhibition nearly five decades later. The National Galleries of Scotland also exhibited Riley’s artworks from June until September 2019, displaying over 70 years’ worth of paintings that defined British art.

Working exclusively in monochrome until the late 1960s, Riley’s early works integrate optical, scientific effects into the language of painting. Typically featuring repeated geometric shapes, Riley created the effect of movement on two-dimensional surfaces, stimulating the viewer’s eyes into sharper attention as the canvases appear to move and oscillate. Riley’s first works demonstrate her desire to capture the dazzling brilliance of nature in non-figurative abstraction: rendering the sensations and emotions generated when regarding nature in paint, rather than the natural landscapes themselves.
Throughout the 1960s, Riley developed her practice by incorporating grey hues into her works. Yet, it was these exclusively black and white works which initially propelled Riley to international acclaim following the artist’s inaugural solo show at Gallery One in 1962.
Riley credits her fervent interest in colour and form with the work of the Italian Futurists and French Masters such as Henri Matisse and Georges Seurat. Pointillism and Divisionism also underpin Riley’s practice: both modern art movements that rely on the capacity of the eye to regard colours laid side by side in order to achieve a fuller spectrum of colour. Like many artists before Riley, including Sonia Delaunay and Josef Albers, Riley was keen to explore the emotional reactions colours could evoke in the viewer.
On Seurat’s work Riley confessed: 'his work gave me a sense of the viewer’s importance as an active participant. Perception became the medium'. This reflects Riley’s utopian view of the function of art: the viewer completes the experience of painting by regarding the artwork.
In 1965, Riley was featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition The Responsive Eye in New York; the exhibition that first drew world-wide attention to her work. In 1968, Riley represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale and was the first woman to receive the International Painting Prize.
In 1998, Riley became one of only 65 Companions of Honor in Britain. In 2019 the Hayward Gallery opened a 70-year retrospective of Riley’s life and oeuvre. Now at the age of 90, Riley continues to inspire younger generations of artists from Damien Hirst to Rachel Whiteread.

Record prices

All Bridget Riley's record prices

Image © Christie's / Gala © Bridget Riley 1974

1. £4.4M for Bridget Riley's Gala

Initially executed in 1974, Bridget Riley’s Gala dabbles with bold colours, perfectly simulating the motion of the rippling surface of a stream. This painting represents the height of the Op Art movement and Riley’s experimentation and transition to the more visually daring.

Gala surpassed its presale estimates of £2.5-£3.5million, selling at an eye-watering £4.4million at the Modern British Art Evening Sale in Christie’s in London.

Untitled (Diagonal Curve) by Bridget Riley

Image © Christie's / Untitled (Diagonal Curve) © Bridget Riley 1971

2. £4.3M for Bridget Riley's Untitled, Diagonal Curve

A stand-out example of British artist Bridget Riley’s visually arresting illusionist œuvre, Untitled (Diagonal Curve) (1966) smashed its price estimate (between £2.5 million and £3.5 million), realising £4,338,500 at Christie’s London in June of 2016. Performing markedly stronger than some of its straight-lined counterparts, such as Zing 2 (1971), which realised just under £3.3 million in June 2021, this dynamic, monochrome work reminds us of Riley’s position at the centre point of the Op Art movement.

Comprising a vertigo-inducing assemblage of seemingly oscillatory form, this optically challenging piece is one of the artist’s last experimentations with black and white; the next year, Riley would go on to make her first bold steps in the world of colour.

Image © Christie's / Zing 2 © Bridget Riley 1971

3. £3.3M for Bridget Riley's Zing 2

A work typical of British artist Bridget Riley’s œuvre during the ‘60s and ‘70s, Zing 2 (1971) has remained hidden from the public eye since the time of its production. Significantly outstripping its auction price estimate of £1.8 million - £2.2 million, the work realised just under £3.3 million in June 2021 at Christie’s auction house in London.

In contrast with the markedly more serpentine elements of Riley’s work, such as those vibrant paintings the artist created during the 1980s and beyond, Riley’s use of colour appears somewhat muted. Ever present, however, is the artist’s highly technical, semi-illusionist approach to geometric form – a hallmark of the so-called Op Art movement.

Image © Christie's / Chant 2 © Bridget Riley 1967

Related artists

Jonas
Wood

Yoshitomo
Nara

Ed
Ruscha

Yayoi
Kusama

Chris
Levine

Alex
Katz

David
Hockney

Grayson
Perry

Google reviews

4.9

172 reviews

VICKIE JAMES

My experience as a first time seller with MyArtBroker was nothing short of brilliant! I have to admit to being very apprehensive and nervous, had no idea what to expect and a head full of questions. Little did I know I had nothing to worry about. I was expertly guided through the whole process by the wonderful Celine who, as expected is knowledgable and prof...

a day ago

Li Smith

I’m so grateful for how easy Celine at My Art Broker made selling my first piece. I’ll be honest, I was really nervous handing over something of such high value, but was reassured every step of the way. A price was agreed early on, and was stuck to. The seller paid for all shipping and restoration fees. I didn’t know what to expect with timescales so had so...

a week ago

Ian Hall

efficient service, great people to deal with, and got a great result for me exactly as promised

a week ago

James Leslie

Great experience selling through them. Realistic valuation and good communications. Totally hassle free as they arranged for collection of the piece and very prompt payment when sold. Celine was fantastic and would recommend to anyone.

a week ago

Ben Wills

Faultless service. Will be using again in future. Recommended.

a week ago

Richard Tucker

My first experience working with My Art Broker was in selling an artwork. The artwork was collected on a Monday, a deal quickly agreed and the funds were in my account by Thursday. I found the whole experience to be completely stress free and painless. Pleasingly this is the first time I have made a sale and not incurred any fees or charges. The price agreed...

2 weeks ago

About

Contact
[email protected]
+44 (0)204 571 6292
#ABanksy4Ukraine
MyArtBroker
180 Strand
Temple
London
WC2R 1EA
(by appointment only)

Privacy policy
Cookie policy
Website terms of use

Bridget
Riley

Notable collections

Buy and sell Bridget Riley prints

The
MyArtbroker advantage

Biography