Riley in Cairo: British Art and Egypt in the 1980s

In the early 1980s, Bridget Riley produced a series of paintings distinguished by their use same group colours, said to have been inspired vividly preserved painted tombs that she encountered during visit Egypt in winter 1979–80. Though clearly related black‐and‐white propelled international fame 1960s, these new works represented notable change artist's methods, combining an intuitive arrangement colour with simple compositional motif: stripe. While determinedly abstract, imaginative origins Riley's stripe are registered many titles they carry: Ka (1980); Ra (1981); Luxor (1982); Winter Palace (1981). This essay reconsiders making, display and reception so‐called ‘Egyptian palette’ within longer history encounter exchange between Britain Egypt, ranging across more than century military occupation resistance, Cold War entrenchment, neoliberal diplomacy. doing so, it situates work colonial post‐colonial ways seeing.