Proof that Riley’s appeal is still black and white
The much-heralded retrospective exhibition for Britain’s leading abstract painter, Bridget Riley, lands at the Hayward Gallery in London this week, following its run at the Scottish National Gallery. Under the management of the megadealer David Zwirner (who opened his latest gallery in Paris last week, saying he wanted a base in Europe, rather than just London), Riley’s auction prices have risen to £4.3million. That was for one of her distinctive black and white Op art paintings of the Sixties, which are her most sought after.
In response to this, and to the exclusion of Riley’s prints from the retrospective, the enterprising Mayfair print dealer Lyndsey Ingram has gathered, for the first time anywhere, examples of every print Riley made between 1962 and 1968. All except the more recent, which are in shades of grey, are rare black-and-white Op art classics – some on paper, others on Plexiglas – which Ingram has dug hard to find. More affordable than the paintings, these prints have been rising, too, and range here from £15,000 to £110,000.
Last week, the High Court staged a judicial review of the recent Ivory Act, under which the trade in antique ivory works of art is to be banned in the UK. The review was triggered by Fact (Friends of Antique Cultural Treasures), whose lawyers argued, firstly, that the ban was out of harmony with EU law, and secondly, that its terms – a blanket ban with minor exceptions – were disproportionate, given how little empirical evidence there was providing a causal link between the antiques trade and current elephant slaughter.
The Government’s lawyers argued that the ban was justified because high prices for antique ivory works of art encourage the trade in modern ivory taken from recently slaughtered elephants and that, even though there is little or no evidence in the more discriminating, high end of the antiques trade, modern ivory can be faked to enter the currently legitimate trade in antique works.
While Justice Robert Jay seemed unimpressed by the EU harmony angle, he did register a weak causal link between the slaughter of elephants and the antiques trade. Proportionality (ie, whether the ban is more severe than necessary) is, said the judge, “what this case is all about”. The Government ended its case by pointing out that the severity of the ban would emphasise Britain’s role as a world leader in the fight against elephant slaughter. Whether the route taken to leadership is a just one will be up to the judge to decide.