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Lot Essay
Painted in 1981, Early Light belongs to a group of paintings that Riley produced with her 'Egyptian palette' that was inspired by a trip to Egypt in the winter of 1979-80. Paul Moorhouse comments, 'During that trip she visited the Nile Valley and the museum at Cairo, and was able to study, at first hand, the tombs of the later Pharoahs in the Valley of the Kings. Riley was astonished by the art she found in these ancient burial sites carved out of rock and located deep in the earth. These sacred places were dedicated to the dead, yet the tomb decoration was a vivid evocation of life and light. Though their creators had used only a limited number of colours - red, blue, yellow, turquoise, green, black and white - the walls of the chambers receded behind images in which could be seen a bustling affirmation of everyday existence. In looking at the art and craft of Ancient Egypt in the Cairo Museum, Riley recognised that the same colours had been used in all aspects of the Egyptians' material lives, from the decorative to the purely functional' (see exhibition catalogue, Bridget Riley, London, Tate Britain, 2003, p. 22).
Back in London, Riley recreated these colours from memory to use in her paintings. She began to use oil paint rather than acrylic as this provided a greater saturation and density of colour. Riley also found that she needed a different structure in her work in which to use this Egyptian colour scheme and abandoned the curve which had been a feature of her paintings for the last six years in favour of the more formal and structured stripe. She commented, 'Right up to, and in some ways including, the stripe paintings I used to build up to sensation, accumulating tension until it released a perceptual experience that flooded the whole as it were. Now I try to take sensation and build, with the relationships it demands, a plastic fabric that has no other raison d'être except to accommodate the sensation it solicits' (see exhibition catalogue, Bridget Riley: Paintings and drawings 1961-2004, Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2005, p. 21).
Early Light belongs to the group of works where Riley included black as one of the stripes. This works as a dominant stripe and punctuates the painting, splitting the other stripes into distinct groupings. Also included in this group of works are Bright Day, 1981 (sold in these rooms 4 June 2004, lot 113), Luxor, 1982 (Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove) and Big Blue, 1981-2 (Queensland Art Gallery).
Back in London, Riley recreated these colours from memory to use in her paintings. She began to use oil paint rather than acrylic as this provided a greater saturation and density of colour. Riley also found that she needed a different structure in her work in which to use this Egyptian colour scheme and abandoned the curve which had been a feature of her paintings for the last six years in favour of the more formal and structured stripe. She commented, 'Right up to, and in some ways including, the stripe paintings I used to build up to sensation, accumulating tension until it released a perceptual experience that flooded the whole as it were. Now I try to take sensation and build, with the relationships it demands, a plastic fabric that has no other raison d'être except to accommodate the sensation it solicits' (see exhibition catalogue, Bridget Riley: Paintings and drawings 1961-2004, Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2005, p. 21).
Early Light belongs to the group of works where Riley included black as one of the stripes. This works as a dominant stripe and punctuates the painting, splitting the other stripes into distinct groupings. Also included in this group of works are Bright Day, 1981 (sold in these rooms 4 June 2004, lot 113), Luxor, 1982 (Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove) and Big Blue, 1981-2 (Queensland Art Gallery).