Category Archives: COLOUR SERIES

Deep shades of indigo like Japanese Blue were a potent tool in the arsenal of much-loved 19th century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, a means of investing dark, brooding shadows into his atmospheric woodblock prints. From the cavernous depths of gushing waterfalls to the timeless silhouette of Mount Fuji, he layered this entrancing shade of darkness…

The great American realist Edward Hopper had a remarkable gift for observation, finding strange intrigue in the most unlikely of places. Gas stations, late-night bars and quiet buildings tucked away in the wilderness all take on an enigmatic wonder through his stark, directional lighting, angular compositions and striking accents of colour. BARN RED Linen’s entrancing…

There is a light, airy delicacy to DAWN linen, suggesting spring blossom or translucent rose petals blushing pink in the sunlight. It was a colour American artist Georgia O’Keeffe returned to over and over, capturing the pastel toned vibrancy of fresh, new flowers and the dry, parched earth of America’s barren deserts with the same distinctive…

Darkness pervades Tacita Dean’s artworks, falling over craggy rocks and epic mountains into inky, bottomless wells. BLACK Linen shares Dean’s endless black, a colour that intensifies mystery and drama, cloaking and concealing everything it touches. The dark shadows in Dean’s artworks heighten the sublime, cinematic awe of her scenes as she draws us in, inviting…

Dusty, dreamy shades of lilac like WISTFUL MAUVE appeared time and again in the art of pioneering abstractionist Hilma af Klint, representing otherworldly, spiritual states of mind. A medium, theosophist and artist of the early 20th century, Af Klint is now widely recognised as one of the very first abstract artists. Throughout her long career,…

DOVE linen’s near white has just a hint of turquoise blue, mimicking the pale, salty light of JMW Turner’s stunning Venetian marine views. Known as the ‘painter of light’, Turner was entranced by Venice, with its green-blue water reflecting the sky into illusions of infinite, endless space. The floating city became a recurring theme in…

Pioneering modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe made a series of radical breakthroughs during the early to mid-20th century, taking seemingly ordinary, everyday subjects and investing them with a newfound wonder. Of all the subjects she painted, it is her flowers that have received the most critical acclaim; fleshy, bold, and daringly direct, they broke away from…

In Vincent van Gogh’s late paintings, pale blues like Sky became a primary feature, documenting his own intimate, expressive response to the landscapes of Saint-Remy and Auvers. His landscapes convey the wonder he felt at the swirling, iridescent blue light opening out above and all around him, which he painted in sparkling, luminescent shades of…

MEDITERRANEAN BLUE is a dazzling, electrifyingly bright colour that conveys the soaring brilliance of summer. Artists through the generations have explored how this entrancing shade of turquoise blue can capture the light of the European coastline, encapsulating the azure blue of the ocean and the wide-open, cloudless skies overhead. We look at three pioneering French…

Pop artist Andy Warhol had an inimitable knack for capturing the essence of an object, animal or person, ramping up its impact with daring, electrifyingly bright shades of colour like RASPBERRY’s searing hot pink. His screen prints are arguably the most enduring aspect of his legacy, giving him room to experiment wildly with the same…

The pioneering Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi painted a world of rich, decadent and warm tones like MARSALA, which she coupled with dramatic, heightened chiaroscuro. Her paintings draw us into private worlds where theatrical, sometimes terrifying stories play out, or melancholic heroines are overcome with strong emotion. As the most successful female painter of her day,…

British 19th century painter John Constable painted the British landscape as a place of wild and unspoilt wonder, revelling in its curling old trees, mud-soaked ground and billowing, cloud-filled skies. He was fascinated by nature in all its grubby, dirty reality and often honed in on details other might choose to ignore or omit, like…

In 1891, at the age of 43 years, French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin left his life in Europe for Tahiti, in search of a mystical paradise untainted by the trappings of modernity. The paintings he made here are arguably the most celebrated of his entire career, reflecting the abundant landscape of Tahiti with a rich…

French painter Gustave Courbet is best-known as the father of Realism, who painted stirring portrayals of ordinary life and real working people with great pathos and understanding. As such, rustic, naturalistic browns like BROWN STONE were a vital ingredient in his storytelling capacities, allowing him to convey the earthy, rugged realism of life as it…