<P> Riley was born in Norwood, London in 1931 . Her grandfather was an Army officer . Her father, John Fisher Riley, originally from Yorkshire, was a printer and owned his own business . In 1938 he relocated the printing business, together with his family, to Lincolnshire . </P> <P> At the beginning of World War II her father was called up into the army and Bridget, together with her mother and sister Sally, moved to a cottage in Cornwall . The cottage, not far from the sea near Padstow, was shared with an aunt who was a former student at Goldsmiths' College, London . Primary education came in the form of irregular talks and lectures by non-qualified or retired teachers . She attended Cheltenham Ladies' College (1946--1948) and then studied art at Goldsmiths College (1949--52), and later at the Royal College of Art (1952--55). There her fellow students included artists Peter Blake, Geoffrey Harcourt (the retired painter, also noted for his many well known chair designs) and Frank Auerbach . In 1955 Riley graduated with a BA degree . </P> <P> Between 1956 and 1958 she nursed her father, who had been involved in a serious car crash . She suffered a breakdown due to the deterioration of her father's health . After this she worked in a glassware shop . She eventually joined the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, as an illustrator, where she worked part - time until 1962 . The large Whitechapel Gallery exhibition of Jackson Pollock, in the winter of 1958, was to have a major impact on her . </P> <P> Her early work was figurative with a semi-impressionist style . Between 1958 and 1959 her work at the advertising agency showed her adoption of a style of painting based on the pointillist technique . Around 1960 she began to develop her signature Op Art style consisting of black and white geometric patterns that explore the dynamism of sight and produce a disorienting effect on the eye and produces movement and color . In the summer of 1960 she toured Italy with mentor Maurice de Sausmarez, and the two visited the Venice Biennale with its large exhibition of Futurist works . </P>

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