Entry
Free
Dates
22 Nov 2025–4 May 2026
Hours
11am–5pm
Location
The Selman Gallery, Irene Willett Gallery, South Gallery, North Gallery, Balcony
Turner Contemporary
Coming soon.
This November, Turner Contemporary presents Learning to See, an exhibition by Bridget Riley, conceived in close collaboration with the artist. The exhibition title chosen by Riley comes from one of Monet’s letters to Eugène Boudin, written late in life, thanking Boudin for being the first to teach him ‘to see and understand’.
Surveying Riley’s enduring connection with the natural world and her career-long study of the sensory experience of sight, Learning to See includes works from the late 60s, her most recent canvases, and wall paintings from the last decade. The exhibition also brings together preparatory works on paper showing how the practice of drawing has underpinned her working life.
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For over sixty years, Riley has developed a distinctive visual language rooted in colour, form and rhythm, subjects inspired by her experience of living on the Cornish coast as a child. Affirming her observation that nature is not merely landscape but ‘the dynamism of visual forces – an event rather than an appearance’, the exhibition will offer an opportunity to view Riley’s work against the context of the ever-shifting light, skies and tides of Margate.
Riley works closely with the sight lines and approaches afforded by Turner Contemporary’s modernist, light-focussed gallery architecture, and the ways a work may respond to the point from which it is experienced by the viewer. On the installation of a major new Intervals wall painting within the exhibition, Riley notes that the ‘unusual deployment of the galleries gives us the chance to see things differently’.
‘The unusual deployment of the galleries gives us the chance to see things differently.’
Learning to See gathers paintings from different periods of Riley’s work, not to trace a linear progression of the artist’s practice, but to explore her ongoing evolution. The recurrence of motifs such as the line, curve, circle and triangle connect work across her career, allowing a dynamic dialogue between past and present. These motifs reveal how Riley continues to re-engage with earlier works, sometimes decades later, transforming them into new paintings. In the 1960s, the artist established the basis of her formal vocabulary with her black-and-white paintings and in 1967, she introduced colour into her work, thus expanding the perceptual range.
Such correspondences can be seen in the selection, which includes Winter Palace (1981, Leeds Museums and Galleries) and Silvered Painting 2 (2023, Private Collection); Arrest 3 (1965, Glasgow Life Museums) and Streak 3 (1980, Private Collection) in which different curves relate to the present Dark Colours series. A new painting Pharaoh (2024) based on Study 1 for ‘Sultan’ painting (1983) similarly extends Riley’s engagement with her Egyptian palette.
‘Nothing but appearance can give us the truth – or what we can know of it.’
Bridget Riley is one of Britain’s most influential artists working today, and her studio practice remains ground-breaking. Born in London in 1931, she gained international recognition in 1965 through her participation in The Responsive Eye exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and at the Venice Biennale in 1968 in which she was awarded the International Prize for Painting. Born in London in 1931, she gained international recognition in 1965 through her participation in The Responsive Eye exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and at the Venice Biennale in 1968 in which she was awarded the International Prize for Painting.
This exhibition at Turner Contemporary celebrates the clarity and energy of Riley’s exploration of visual sensation – a continuum of thought and vision that remains as vital today as when it began in the 1960s.
Riley cites Monet’s letter to his good friend, the statesman, Georges Clemenceau, ‘Nothing but appearance can give us the truth – or what we can know of it.’
Learning to See is curated by Melissa Blanchflower, Senior Curator, Turner Contemporary and Bridget Riley.
Header image: 'Dancing to the Music of Time', 2022. Photo: def image. © Bridget Riley 2025. All rights reserved. Courtesy of the artist and Collection of National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
‘Bridget Riley has transformed our understanding of how we look and see. This exhibition invites us to engage with the very act of perception itself, revealing how her paintings make vision a dynamic, sensory experience.’
In 1968, Bridget Riley represented Great Britain at the 34th Venice Biennale (along with Phillip King), where she was the first living British painter to win the International Prize for Painting. In 1974, Riley was awarded a CBE and in 1999, she was made a Companion of Honour. She received an honorary D.Litt. from Oxford University in 1993 and from Cambridge University in 1995.
Bridget Riley has exhibited internationally and widely since the early 1960s. Her exhibition Point de départ is now showing at the Musée D’Orsay, in Paris. Earlier this year, Tate Britain mounted a display celebrating her work which will be on view until June 2026. Other solo exhibitions include Bridget Riley Drawings: From the Artist’s Studio, Art Institute of Chicago which travelled to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and the Morgan Library, New York (all 2023); Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut (2022); a major retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh which travelled to the Hayward Gallery, London (2019-2020); Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, Sakura, Japan (2018); The Courtauld Gallery (2015); Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand (2017); and Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2008).
Work by Bridget Riley is held in museum and public collections worldwide, including the Arts Council, UK; Tate, UK; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Sheffield Museums Trust, UK; Ulster Museum, Belfast; The Dallas Museum of Art; Dia Art Foundation, New York; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, New Zealand; Kunstmuseum Bern; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; National Galleries of Scotland; Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.
Accessibility information
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We offer free monthly BSL tours of all our exhibitions, which you can book here.
We also subtitle all our films where possible and offer written transcripts of both films and audio works on display.
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A hearing loop system is in place at our retail and café counters.
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We’re wheelchair accessible, with step-free access and a lift serving both floors. You can enter the gallery via the access ramp to the right of the entrance steps.
You can also borrow a wheelchair or portable stool during your visit, and our staff will be happy to help if you require any additional assistance.
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Large print versions of the exhibition text and magnifying sheets are available. Please ask a member of staff if you would like to use them.
Our staff are trained in delivering audio descriptive tours. If you would like more information about booking an audio described tour please get in touch with us: access@turnercontemporary.org | +44(0)1843 233 000 (operated daily 10am–5pm)
Audio versions of the exhibition text can be found on our free digital guide on the Bloomberg Connects app. For more information and to download the app click here. -
Entry to the exhibition is free, but we welcome donations.
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This exhibition opens on 22 November 2025.
Our opening times are:
11am–5pm, Wednesday to Sunday
And every Bank Holiday. -
Turner Contemporary, Rendezvous, Margate, CT9 1HG
Support
We would like to thank all the generous supporters of this exhibition. Lead Supporter is Galerie Max Hetzler. Supporters are The Bridget Riley Art Foundation, David Zwirner, Ryan Taylor, The Firebird Collection, Levett Collection and Museum FAMM Mougins. Bridget Riley Supporters’ Circle members are Cristea Roberts Gallery, Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, Ivor Braka Ltd, The Peter Dubens Family Foundation, Rory and Elizabeth Brooks Foundation, Rothschild Foundation and Christie’s. Learning Supporter is De Ying Foundation. Turner Contemporary receives public funding from Arts Council England and Kent County Council.
