Picasso’s “Demoiselles d’Avignon”

Morgan Library, New York, June 23 through October 8, 2023.

I have never really considered that preparatory drawings might be an important part of Bridget Riley’s workflow, but this exhibit at the Morgan proves it. The works are all donated for the show by the artist herself, from her personal collection.

Riley is one of the most accomplished abstract artists of the period, and live in a middle range between Op Art and Minimalism. Seeing the discipline of these small sketches as generators of the larger finished ideas is a revelation.

The exhibition introduction notes that this is the first show of Riley’s drawings in fifty years.

Drawing is having an eye at the end of a pencil

-Riley