Rediscovering history’s women colour theorists
6/24/202649 min
You might have heard of men like Isaac Newton or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, but who were the pioneering women writing on colour theory?
To answer that question, we’re joined by cultural historian Alexandra Loske and The Colour Club founder Zeynep Sagir. Together, they uncover the lives of figures like Martha Gartside, Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and Carry van Biema.
From intricate colour grids to radical visual experiments, we study the work, stories and lasting legacies of these women – revealing how their influence is being recognised today.
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Alexandra is a colour expert, art historian and museum curator. Her exhibition 'Colour: A Chromatic Promenade through the Royal Pavilion' was on display at The Royal Pavilion in Brighton in 2025. She is also author of 'The Artist's Palette' and 'Colour: A Visual History'.
Zeynep is an artist, colour consultant, and founder of The Colour Club. Through The Colour Club, Zeynep runs workshops, hosts events, and offers consultancy, as well as publishing articles and interviews.
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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: www.nationalgallery.org.uk/podcast
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Additional note:
Since this episode was recorded, Alexandra has undertaken some additional research into Mary Gartside and has found that her name was Martha Gartside.
Find out more about Martha Gartside and Alexandra’s research here: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/69706
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Paintings mentioned:
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Fighting Temeraire’, 1839 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-fighting-temeraire
Angelica Kauffman RA**, '**Colouring', 1778-80. Oil on canvas. 1260 mm x 1485 mm x 25 mm. © Royal Academy of Arts, London; photographer: John Hammond. (RA ref. 03/1130) https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/colour
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Further reading:
Alexandra Loske, ‘The Artist's Palette: The Palettes Behind the Paintings of 50 Great Artists’, 2024 [Book]
Alexandra Loske, ‘Colour: A Visual History’, 2019 [Book]
Find out more about ‘The Colour Club’: https://www.thecolourclub.co.uk/
Isaac Newton, ‘Opticks: A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light’, 1704 [Book] https://wellcomecollection.org/works/d445akky/items
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, ‘Zur Farbenlehre', 1810 [Book]
George Sharf, ‘Allen's shop in St Martin's Lane [...]’, 1829. Watercolour © The British Museum, London https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1862-0614-119
Roy Osborne, ‘Books on Colour 1495-2015: History and Bibliography’, 2020 [Book]
Cennino Cennini, ‘Il Libro dell’arte’, produced around late 14th century [Book]
Alexandra Loske, ‘Mary Gartside: A female colour theorist in Georgian England’, St Andrews Journal of Art History and Museum Studies*,* Vol.14, 2010 [Journal article] https://ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/nsr/article/download/234/261
Mary Gartside, ‘Essay on Light and Shade’, 1805 [Book] https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1756677/an-essay-on-light-and-book-gartside-mary/
Mary Gartside, ‘An Essay on a New Theory of Colours and on Composition in General’, 1808 [Book] https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1756676/an-essay-on-a-new-book-mary-gartside/
Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, ‘Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color’, 1902 [Book] https://archive.org/details/colorproblemspra00vand/page/n1/mode/2up
Caroline van Biema, ‘Farben und Formen als lebendige Kräfte’, 1930 [Book] https://www.staatsgalerie.de/de/sammlung-digital/farben-und-formen-lebendige-kraefte
Bonnie E. Snow and Hugo B. Froehlich, ‘The theory and practice of color’, 1928 [Book]
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Episode credits:
Guests: Dr Alexandra Loske and Zeynep Sagir
Host and executive producer: Beks Leary
Producer: Harry Rosehill
Researcher: Hannah Rogers
Technicians: Ian Warren and Tom Gulliver
Video Producers: Jeanne Kenyon and Alessandro Sorenti
Editor: Oli Mason
Theme music: Theo Elwell
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsBex Leary· Host0:00
[gentle music] "From a scientific standpoint, admirable works on color have been written, but they demand more time and study than many can give to them, and are too theoretical to be easily understood. Whilst those written from an artistic standpoint may be useful to those who paint pictures, but are not of much benefit to larger classes of people who are artists in other occupations. Painters of pictures must study color as well as lines and composition, but a better understanding of color would also be of great value to decorators, designers, lithographers, florists, dressmakers, and milliners, women in their dress and home decoration, and many others." That is a quote from Emily Noyes Vanderpool's Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color. Welcome to Stories in Color podcast from the National Gallery in London, searching for histories of how color has changed the world. In this episode, we're asking why, among many famous color theorists and writers, so few we know today are women. We'll be telling the stories of some of these amazing women and the impact they've had on color and indeed art history. I'm Bex Leary from the digital department here at the National Gallery, and I'm joined today by two guests, Dr. Alexandra Loske and Zeynep Cagir. Alexandra's a color expert and art historian