Pink is for girls, blue is for boys

7/8/202658 min

Have you ever wondered whether pink really is for girls and blue for boys? In our final episode of series two, Beks is joined by Dr Vien Cheung, Associate Professor at the University of Leeds, and National Gallery Educator Ed Dickenson to explore the surprising, gendered history of pink and blue.

We trace the rise of fashion's 'shocking pink', the cultural impact of the Barbie movie, and the enduring image of one of art history's most frequently depicted women dressed in blue. Listen to uncover how colour influences fashion, film, psychology, and even athletic performance – challenging assumptions about what pink and blue really mean.

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Vien is an Associate Professor at the University of Leeds, with a research interest in colour from all angles - from science and technology to psychology and philosophy, to art and design.

Ed started his teaching career in Japan before working as a primary school teacher in London. He has worked on the learning teams of several museums and galleries including the Horniman, Historic Royal Palaces, and Ben Uri Gallery. He has been a Gallery Educator at the National Gallery since 2017.

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You can email us with any questions via podcast@nationalgallery.org.uk

Find out more about the podcast on our website: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/podcast

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Paintings mentioned:

Andrea Solario, ‘A Man with a Pink’, About 1495 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/andrea-solario-a-man-with-a-pink

Raphael, ‘The Madonna of the Pinks ('La Madonna dei Garofani')’, About 1506-7 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/raphael-the-madonna-of-the-pinks-la-madonna-dei-garofani

Paolo Veronese, ‘The Family of Darius before Alexander’, 1565-7 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-veronese-the-family-of-darius-before-alexander

William Hogarth, ‘The Graham Children’, 1742 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/william-hogarth-the-graham-children

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Clips

1918: Pink For Boys

Pink Prison Experiment

Kids Choose Pink Freely

Barbie Drains World’s Pink

Color Codes Are Recent

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First 90 seconds

Bex Leary· Host0:00
[gentle music] Two weeks ago, I saw Cameron Diaz at Fred Segal, and I talked her out of buying this truly heinous angora sweater. Whoever said orange is the new pink was seriously disturbed. That's a quote from Elle Woods in the 2002 film Legally Blonde. Welcome to Stories in Color, a podcast from the National Gallery in London, searching for histories of how color as a technology and an art has changed the world we live in. Pink is for girls and blue is for boys, right? For anyone who's seen a recent gender reveal video, you'd think this was true, even if we are trying to be a bit more egalitarian about gendered color associations. But this idea that pink is for girls and blue is for boys is actually surprisingly a recent one. We'll get into it in the rest of this episode. I'm Bex Leary from the digital department here at the National Gallery, and today I'm joined by two guests, Dr. Vien Cheung and Ed Dickinson. Vien is an academic at the University of Leeds, with a research interest in color from all angles, from science and technology to psychology and philosophy, and to art and design. Ed is an educator here at the National Gallery, and started his teaching career 20 years ago in Japan before spending many years as a primary school teacher in London. He's since worked on the learning teams of a

Clips

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