- Artist
- Bridget Riley born 1931
- Medium
- Polyvinyl acetate paint on hardboard
- Dimensions
- Support: 1410 × 1403 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1963
- Reference
- T00616
Display caption
In 1960, Bridget Riley started exploring the visual sensation of looking. She investigated the dynamic potential of optical effects. This would become known as op art. Riley mostly worked with the contrast of black and white, occasionally introducing different tones of grey. In Fall, she repeated a single curving line to create varying optical frequencies. She said of this work: ‘I try to organise a field of visual energy which accumulates until it reaches maximum tension.’
Gallery label, September 2023
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Catalogue entry
T00616 FALL 1963
Inscr. ‘Riley’ 63' on edge of support b.r.
Emulsion on hardboard, 55 1/2×55 1/4 (141×140·5).
Purchased from Gallery One (Grant-in-Aid) 1963.
Exh: Gallery One, September 1963 (15, repr.).
The artist wrote (28 October 1963) that this work was painted in June–July 1963 and added: ‘I find it difficult to make a comment concerning “Fall” for your catalogue mainly because it is a recent work and gives rise to certain possibilities I intend to develop in future paintings before reaching a position to make a conclusive statement - I try to organise a field of visual energy which accumulates until it reaches maximum tension.’
Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II
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