BERLIN.- Galerie Max Hetzler presents a small retrospective of this major British artist's work with a special focus on works from the last three decades, which includes studies, paintings and wall paintings. Almost ‘drawing with colour’, her work from the past ten years focuses more specifically on the effects produced by the juxtaposition of colour, believing that ‘the challenge of colour had to be met on its own terms’. Throughout her writings, Riley emphasises the importance of 'looking' when in front of paintings or in nature. Yet, as Adrian Searle, art critic of the Guardian, points out, 'you don’t so much look at her paintings as watch them', the colours, the shapes, the negative spaces constantly shift before your eyes. 'At their best, her works seem alive.'

Riley is curating the exhibition and has selected a number of paintings never exhibited in Germany before, as well as loans from private collections. In addition, the exhibition also includes the large wall drawing Composition with Circles 4 (2004), the second time that a work of this series is on display in Germany. On this occasion the gallery space is redesigned by internationally renowned architect, Paul Williams.

In 2009 Bridget Riley was recipient of Germany’s most prestigious prize, The Goslar Award for Modern Art and in 2012 she will be awarded the Rubenspreis der Stadt Siegen. Her work is in the collection of major international museums including Neues Museum, Nürnberg; MoMA, New York; Tate Gallery, London; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo among others. Two wall paintings as well as paintings and studies are also currently on view in a unique exhibition, Bridget Riley: Paintings and Related Work, at the National Gallery in London, on view until 22 May 2011.

A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition. It includes translations of Riley’s recent essay ‘Work’ (2009) and her 2005 conversation with Lynne Cooke, both in German for the first time. The book is published by Holzwarth Publications, Berlin in association with Ridinghouse, London.