The Musée d'Orsay in Paris is preparing to showcase a remarkable artistic dialogue between two masters separated by nearly a century. British artist Bridget Riley, the 94-year-old legend of optical art, will be featured in an exhibition exploring how her foundational artistic development was profoundly influenced by the work of French Post-Impressionist Georges Seurat.

Riley stands as Britain's other "Iron Lady" in the art world, representing a nation that maintains a unique relationship with painting. This connection has been recently demonstrated by her compatriot David Hockney's spectacular success at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, where his exhibition "David Hockney 25" drew an impressive 916,614 visitors. Born in Yorkshire in 1931, the same decade as Hockney, Riley grew up in Cornwall with an aunt who had studied at Goldsmiths College, where Riley herself would later attend from 1949 to 1952.

Art history often emphasizes the pivotal moment when this queen of rhythmic abstraction encountered Jackson Pollock's work at London's Whitechapel Gallery in 1958. However, the Musée d'Orsay's upcoming exhibition will focus on an earlier and equally crucial period of her artistic journey. The museum will explore "how the study of Georges Seurat's work constituted a foundational impulse in the development of her artistic approach."

Titled "Bridget Riley: Point of Departure," the exhibition will be housed in the museum's Post-Impressionist gallery this fall. This strategic placement underscores the direct connection between Riley's early development and the innovative techniques pioneered by Seurat in the late 19th century. The show promises to reveal how the methodical pointillist approach of the French master provided essential groundwork for what would eventually become Riley's signature optical art style.

The exhibition will feature Riley's early homage works, including her interpretation of Seurat's "The Bridge at Courbevoie" from 1959, demonstrating her deep engagement with the Post-Impressionist master's compositional and color theories. These early studies show Riley's meticulous examination of how Seurat's systematic approach to color and form could be translated into a contemporary visual language. The display will illuminate the technical and philosophical connections between Seurat's scientific approach to painting and Riley's later development of precise geometric patterns that create powerful optical effects.