Bridget Riley has made history again, this time by becoming the first woman to win the prestigious Sikkens Prize.  The Sikkens Prize is a Dutch art award given to an artist in recognition of their ‘use of colour’.

From the Sikkens Foundation website: “This grand old lady of British art will receive this prestigious colour prize for the way in which she has enriched her work with colour. The purity, subtlety and precision of her use of colour have led to a sensational oeuvre from which a new generation of artists is drawing inspiration. At the same time she has demonstrated her ability to appeal to a broad public with her abstract work.”

The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag is putting on a Bridget Riley exhibition in honour of her win which runs until 01/06/2013

Every now and again you encounter a piece of Op Art that produces such a strong visual effect it serves to remind you how much there still is to learn about human perception.

“Ghost” (above) by Mexican artist Ramiro Chávez Tovar is one such piece.  As you look towards the centre of the piece you’ll fleetingly notice that there appear to be a series of grid-like concentric circles and straight lines running from the outer edges into the centre.  Move your eyes or concentrate on a small section of the image and you’ll see that these lines are not part of the picture – it is in fact your perceptual system that is creating them.

You can see more of Ramiro’s work, including ‘Rotating drops’ above, on his deviant art profile.

For those who are interested, Ghost was created in contextfree and was generated by the following code:

startshape ghost

background {b 1}

rule ghost {

36*{r -10 h 10 }{30*{y 0.99 s 1.099 r 5.5 h 10 b 0.06} CIRCLE {y 1}}

CIRCLE {s 1}

}

Thanks to Ramiro for getting in touch with me.

The Francis Frost Gallery currently has three works for sale (update: two are now sold so only one remains) by Op Artist Bill Komodore (1932-2012).

Bill Komodore was one of the ‘first generation’ of Op Artists producing a lot of his work (including these) in the 1960s.

His painting “Vermont” was featured in the MoMA’s 1965 “The Responsive Eye” exhibition. “Gondisapur” (below but sold already) was also loaned to the Museum of Modern Art, and was included in the travelling exhibion of “The Responsive Eye” which toured the USA in 1965 and 1966.

If you want to own a piece of history and have a few thousand dollars to spare, I would suggest you get in touch with Francis at the Francis Frost gallery.

The influential and pioneering gallery owner Denise René has died aged 99.

René was an extremely important figure in the world of abstract art (including Op Art).  She was putting on shows for artists like Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevich and Victor Vasarely at a time when other curators were dismissing their works and refusing to display them or take them seriously.

Her decision to put on an exhibition of Vasarely’s work in 1944 and the show’s subsequent success was a key factor in Vasarely’s decision to quit his commercial graphic design job and pursue art full time.

In 1965 the famous landmark Op Art exhibition the ‘Responsive Eye’ owes much to Denise René.  The curator of the exhibition (William Seitz) asked René for her help in assembling the pieces for the show.  Her incredible knowledge and understanding of which pieces and artists should be exhibited made the Responsive Eye the runaway success it was.

In view of the above and for numerous other reasons, it could be argued that René was essential to the development of the Op Art movement.

You can read a more detailed obituary here.