Room two Start Display

Henri Matisse, The Snail  1953

WHAT EFFECTS ARE CREATED BY PLACING DIFFERENT COLOURS NEXT TO EACH OTHER?
Henri Matisse loved making art. But when he was in his 60s ill health made it difficult for him to paint. Instead he started ‘painting with scissors’, cutting painted paper into shapes. He had assistants to help him in the studio. They moved the paper pieces following Matisse’s directions, pinning them to the walls of his studio. If you look closely at The Snail you can see small pin holes. Matisse has arranged the paper in the spiral shape of a snail’s shell, placing colours next to each other to create a vibrant effect: green and red, orange and blue, pink and yellow.
‘It is not enough to place colours, however beautiful, one beside the other; colours must also react on one another.’

Gallery label, July 2020

Yves Klein, IKB 79  1959

In 1947, Klein began making monochrome paintings, which he associated with freedom from ideas of representation or personal expression. A decade later, he developed his trademark, patented colour, International Klein Blue (IKB). This colour, he believed, had a quality close to pure space, and he associated it with immaterial values beyond what can be seen or touched. He described it as ‘a Blue in itself, disengaged from all functional justification’. Klein made around 200 monochrome paintings using IKB. He did not give titles to these works but, after his death, his widow assigned a number to each one.

Gallery label, November 2005

Ceal Floyer, Monochrome Till Receipt (White)  1999

CAN COLOUR BE AN IDEA?
A shopping receipt may seem like a strange thing to put on an art gallery wall. How can this be art? Rather than making a painting or sculpture, there are many artists (like Ceal Floyer here) who create art from everyday things. She would like you to think about the idea behind the art, rather than what it looks like. Take a closer look at the receipt. You will see that it is a list of objects bought from the supermarket that are all white. Imagine the objects and their whiteness and think about why this might be in a display about colour. Is white a colour?
It’s actually a funny process… How many packets I’ve opened to check [the contents are white] and then not bought. But basically it should equal or come close to a picture of white.

Start Gallery caption, 2016

Gallery label, July 2017

Peter Sedgley, Colour Cycle III  1970

Fahrelnissa Zeid, Untitled  c.1950s

This large-scale painting on canvas dating from c.1950 was made by the Turkish artist Fahrelnissa Zeid while she was living in London. Zeid’s practice of the 1950s combines aspects of informal abstraction with influences drawn from mosaic and stained glass designs inspired by Islamic and Byzantine traditions. Characteristic of her style at this time, Untitled shows a web of colours in a system of kaleidoscopic patterns. The interweaving lines produce numerous shapes and forms on the picture plane, resulting in a variety of multi-coloured, interlocking rectangular and triangular shapes with curved sides. The overall effect of the painting is one of dense geometry in motion and a sense of order bordering on chaos. The colour palette of black, green, blue and pastel pinks creates a sense of calmness and harmony. The painting has no particular focal point, but rather presents many centres that emanate across the composition. The result is a distorted and complex perspectival arrangement characterised by visual event and repetition. The composition resembles an explosive world or landscape suggestive of fractal geometry.

Winifred Nicholson, Moonlight and Lamplight  1937

Having embraced abstraction, Nicholson contended that ‘material resemblances were of no account - and that art could be valid without resemblances to physical objects’.

Writing the year Moonlight and Lamplight was painted, Nicholson stated that she was ‘using colour to express colour - the form could take whatever form the colour wanted’. She was ‘never interested in form, or shape or volume or mass to express colour,’ but ‘studied the way the rainbow prisms break up white light into colour and ... the balance and pose of the weight of one colour against another’.

Gallery label, April 2012

Maria Lalic, History Painting 17 Italian. Naples Yellow  1995

CAN COLOUR RELATE TO A PARTICULAR PERIOD IN TIME?

Maria Lalic’s paintings explore the history of colour pigments that were used to make paint. Each painting is made from semi-transparent layers of pigment that were discovered in the in the time referred to in the painting’s title. The artist was inspired by an old colour chart from paint manufacturer
Winsor and Newton. It grouped pigments into six historical periods: Cave, Egyptian, Greek, Italian, 18th and 19th century, and 20th century. There is one painting for each period displayed here. Looking closely at the edges you can see the different paints she has layered to create the final colour of the painting.

‘I think I’m simply excited by recognising a time and place through colour.’

Start Gallery caption, 2016

Gallery label, July 2017

Maria Lalic, History Painting 35 C18/19th. Cadmium Yellow  1995

CAN COLOUR RELATE TO A PARTICULAR PERIOD IN TIME?

Maria Lalic’s paintings explore the history of colour pigments that were used to make paint. Each painting is made from semi-transparent layers of pigment that were discovered in the in the time referred to in the painting’s title. The artist was inspired by an old colour chart from paint manufacturer
Winsor and Newton. It grouped pigments into six historical periods: Cave, Egyptian, Greek, Italian, 18th and 19th century, and 20th century. There is one painting for each period displayed here. Looking closely at the edges you can see the different paints she has layered to create the final colour of the painting.

‘I think I’m simply excited by recognising a time and place through colour.’

Start Gallery caption, 2016

Gallery label, August 2017

Maria Lalic, History Painting 8 Egyptian. Orpiment  1995

CAN COLOUR RELATE TO A PARTICULAR PERIOD IN TIME?

Maria Lalic’s paintings explore the history of colour pigments that were used to make paint. Each painting is made from semi-transparent layers of pigment that were discovered in the in the time referred to in the painting’s title. The artist was inspired by an old colour chart from paint manufacturer
Winsor and Newton. It grouped pigments into six historical periods: Cave, Egyptian, Greek, Italian, 18th and 19th century, and 20th century. There is one painting for each period displayed here. Looking closely at the edges you can see the different paints she has layered to create the final colour of the painting.

‘I think I’m simply excited by recognising a time and place through colour.’

Start Gallery caption, 2016

Gallery label, July 2017

Maria Lalic, History Painting 2 Cave. Yellow Earth  1995

CAN COLOUR RELATE TO A PARTICULAR PERIOD IN TIME?

Maria Lalic’s paintings explore the history of colour pigments that were used to make paint. Each painting is made from semi-transparent layers of pigment that were discovered in the in the time referred to in the painting’s title. The artist was inspired by an old colour chart from paint manufacturer
Winsor and Newton. It grouped pigments into six historical periods: Cave, Egyptian, Greek, Italian, 18th and 19th century, and 20th century. There is one painting for each period displayed here. Looking closely at the edges you can see the different paints she has layered to create the final colour of the painting.

‘I think I’m simply excited by recognising a time and place through colour.’

Start Gallery caption, 2016

Gallery label, July 2017

Ellsworth Kelly, Purple Red Gray Orange (Violet Rouge Gris Orange)  1987

This large-scale lithograph depicts a row of four geometric forms in different colours set against a white ground. They are, from left to right, a purple irregular diamond or offset square, a red distorted triangle, a dark grey segment of a circle and an orange segment of a circle. At almost six metres in length, Purple Red Gray Orange is considered to be the largest single-sheet lithograph ever made. Its large scale gives it the presence and impact of Kelly’s paintings, underlining the significance of printmaking in his work as a whole. Another large-scale print from 2001, Blue Black Red Green (Tate L04119), shows Kelly’s return to a similar linear arrangement of four loosely geometric forms many years later, demonstrating his ongoing interest in such themes throughout his career.

Maria Lalic, History Painting 14 Greek. Massicot  1995

CAN COLOUR RELATE TO A PARTICULAR PERIOD IN TIME?

Maria Lalic’s paintings explore the history of colour pigments that were used to make paint. Each painting is made from semi-transparent layers of pigment that were discovered in the in the time referred to in the painting’s title. The artist was inspired by an old colour chart from paint manufacturer
Winsor and Newton. It grouped pigments into six historical periods: Cave, Egyptian, Greek, Italian, 18th and 19th century, and 20th century. There is one painting for each period displayed here. Looking closely at the edges you can see the different paints she has layered to create the final colour of the painting.

‘I think I’m simply excited by recognising a time and place through colour.’

Start Gallery caption, 2016

Gallery label, July 2017

Maria Lalic, History Painting 42 C20th. Winsor Yellow  1995

CAN COLOUR RELATE TO A PARTICULAR PERIOD IN TIME?

Maria Lalic’s paintings explore the history of colour pigments that were used to make paint. Each painting is made from semi-transparent layers of pigment that were discovered in the in the time referred to in the painting’s title. The artist was inspired by an old colour chart from paint manufacturer
Winsor and Newton. It grouped pigments into six historical periods: Cave, Egyptian, Greek, Italian, 18th and 19th century, and 20th century. There is one painting for each period displayed here. Looking closely at the edges you can see the different paints she has layered to create the final colour of the painting.

‘I think I’m simply excited by recognising a time and place through colour.’

Start Gallery caption, 2016

Gallery label, July 2017