Bridget Riley is one of the outstanding figures of modern painting. For thirty-five years she has pursued a course of rigorous abstraction, from her celebrated Op Art works in black and white of the 1960s to the complex colour paintings of the 1990s.

On the occasion of a major exhibition of her recent work at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 1992, BBC Radio broadcast an illuminating series of five dialogues, each one between Riley and a well-known personality from the art world. These talks have been brought together in this volume, expertly edited by the art historian Robert Kudielka.

With Neil MacGregor, Director of the National Gallery, London, she discusses the art of the past in relation to the present; with Sir Ernst Gombrich the perception of colour in painting; with the artist Michael Craig-Martin, the theory and practice of abstraction; and with the critics Bryan Robertson and Andrew Graham-Dixon she talks about the events and travels that have shaped her life as an artist.