Category Archives: COLOUR SERIES

Mark Rothko knew how mesmerising night-time shades of blue could be, soaking them deep into the weave of his canvases until they formed intoxicating pools of darkness. The near-black shade of NIGHT BLUE Linen was one of his favourites, because it could invoke the raging drama and intensity of night, particularly when blurred at the…

American painter Richard Diebenkorn is one of the 20th century’s most celebrated painters, capturing the hazy light of his native California with cool, crystalline colours like that of MICRO CHIP Linen. His world-renowned ‘Ocean Park’ series was made during the 1970s as inspired by the oceanic landscape of Santa Monica, where he had made his…

American painter Cy Twombly’s brilliantly expressive artworks often feature searing hot pinks like RED BUD Linen. This ardent colour blazes like an angry fire in the belly of his art, igniting life into them like hot breath to a flame. Twombly was a leading member of late Abstract Expressionism, emerging out of 1950s New York…

Robert Delaunay’s art is filled with silvery shades of grey-blue like DOLPHIN GRAY Linen, which he adopted to convey the sparkling atmosphere of the modern city. One of the greatest pioneers of the early 20th century, Delaunay stirred up a storm with his dazzling Cubist and Orphist abstractions. Backgrounds in his paintings are subtle arenas…

Earthy, intense shades of green like that of Moss Linen fill Maurice Denis’s intimate art, investing it with a quietly hypnotising magic. Denis was a leader in the avant-garde artist circle Les Nabis alongside Edouard Vuillard, Paul Serusier and Pierre Bonnard; together they pioneered an avant-garde approach to painting that moved away from naturalism towards…

The warmth of GLACIER GRAY Linen shimmered through Agnes Martin’s paintings like light reflecting on water, encouraging us to enter a deep, meditative state of mind. A leading American Minimalist, Martin made her name in 1960s New York for her spare, refined canvases featuring delicate grids and stripes of pale, ghostly colour on epically scaled…

Soaring shades of sky blue like ALLURE Linen dominated Paul Cezanne’s late paintings, filling them with the crisp vitality of the Mediterranean coast. By now settled in his home town of Provence, the art Cezanne made in the last decade of his life are now considered his greatest contribution to the history of art, cementing…

Contemporary Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugito draws us deep into his world of meditative calm, where softly diffused gray light like that of GRAY CASHMERE Linen expands across vast areas of empty space. Sugito made his name in the 1990s as a leader in the Tokyo-pop movement alongside Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara, but his brand…

The great Dutch-American Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning made paintings as acts of performance, smearing, slapping and swiping great slabs and wedges of paint onto his thickly impastoed surfaces, before scraping them back and starting again. Indulgent, creamy streaks of off-white like that of Parchment Linen were a defining feature, suggesting the flickering movement of…

American painter Robert Ryman made many of his quiet, introspective paintings on biscuit toned backdrops, coloured with the same warm, comforting neutral of NEW SAFARI Linen. He interrupted these backgrounds with jarringly fresh shades of arctic white, sometimes skidding like an accident across the picture plane, other times neatly ordered into fenced off squares. A…

British-American painter Cecily Brown weaves Purple Sage Linen’s deep lavender shade into her expressionist canvases, letting it form shadowy rivulets of uneasy, hedonistic darkness. Brown made her name in New York in the late 1990s, painting tangled bodies lavishing in paradisiacal gardens with fleshy passages of paint in rich, indulgent jewel tones. Process, she explains…

French painter Albert Gleizes had a particular knack for painting radiant, golden tones alike to CURRY Linen, investing his paintings with a humane and deeply comforting warmth. A leader in the school of French Cubism alongside Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, Gleizes pioneered new ways of seeing the world, painting with multiple perspectives and fragmented…

Peter Lanyon’s turbulent paintings capture the sublime rough and tumble of the English coastline, with free, energised brushstrokes and luminous shades of grey alike to QUARTZ Linen. A leading member of the St Ives School in Cornwall, Lanyon blended the style of Abstract Expressionism with the majestic wonder of the Cornish landscape, painting craggy rock…

Andrew Wyeth’s paintings are an ode to the barren, melancholic wonder of the American outback, celebrating its long, parched grass and creaky buildings stained yellow in the sun. The golden glow of APPLE CINNAMON Linen tinged Wyeth’s paintings with the tart sweetness of homemade apple juice, infusing a comforting warmth into his otherwise lonely, abandoned…

Henri Matisse had an enduring obsession with BRIGHT COBALT’s distinctive shade of blue, observing with fascination how it could ignite his paintings, prints and paper cut-outs with the luminescence of the sea and sky. Throughout his long and prolific career Matisse shifted through an array of adventurous styles and subjects, but a burning passion for…