British artist Bridget Riley (b. 1931) is one of the most famous abstract painters of her generation. Drawings by Bridget Riley: From the Artist’s Studio — the first exhibition devoted exclusively to his drawings in more than 50 years — offers an intimate look at his studio practice, in which the making of works on paper plays a central role.

The exhibition includes more than 75 studies from the artist’s collection created between the 1940s and the 2000s, among which the first figurative and landscape drawings made during his student years; black-and-white studies for his best-known paintings from the 1960s; and a diverse range of color compositions dating back to the late 1960s. Together they demonstrate Riley’s commitment to paper, pencil, ink and gouache as tools for exploration and innovation. From sketches on grid paper to finished gouaches, these studies anticipate her finished paintings and reveal an essential aspect of her artistic process, which she describes as follows: “It’s as if there was an eye at the end of my pencil, which tries, independently of my personal versatile eye, to penetrate a sort of obscuring veil of thickness.

In early drawings from the 1940s and 1950s, some exhibited for the first time, Riley looked to human form and nature to establish her pursuit of pure abstraction. From 1960, she began to create the geometric compositions for which she gained international (albeit problematic) fame as an avatar of the Op Art movement. In the late 1960s, she moved from exclusively using black, white and gray elements to exploring color in dynamic stripes and waves. His main goal was to produce “a situation of color that releases light when you look at it”. Recent drawings show Riley as an artist who builds on past work, but keeps moving forward.

The exhibition is curated by Rachel Federman, Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Drawings, Morgan Library & Museum; Cynthia Burlingham, Director of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts and Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, Hammer Museum; and Jay A. Clarke, Rothman Family Curator, Prints and Drawings, Art Institute of Chicago. A accompanying catalog reproduces all the works in the exhibition and includes new essays by Clarke, Federman, and art historian and critic Thomas Crow.

Drawings by Bridget Riley: From the Artist’s Studio is on view until October 8 at Morgan Library and Museum At New York.

For more information, visit themorgan.org.