For 50 years Bridget Riley has been regarded as one of Britain's most important abstract artists, renowned for large paintings that feature complex, repetitive geometric shapes and undulating linear patterns. It is fascinating to discover that she sees her decidedly modern paintings as following in an Old Master pictorial tradition. This affinity stems from a lifelong passion for paintings in the National Gallery, London, with which she was first associated as a young student, and later as a Trustee and exhibiting artist. This book celebrates the artist's long engagement with the National Gallery. The authors discuss the significance of paintings from the Gallery's collection that Riley chose for exhibition alongside her own works, and they explain how the fluid lines of Renaissance and Baroque paintings, together with their palette of ochres, salmon, greens, and light blues, translate into the abstracted shapes that appear in Riley's work. The authors also demonstrate how the techniques and methods of modern masters including Cezanne, Seurat, and Matisse exert an important influence on Riley's paintings.

Colin Wiggins is Head of Education at the National Gallery, London. Michael Bracewell is an independent scholar and writer, focusing on contemporary art. Marla Prather is Curator of 20th-Century Painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.