Secret Lives of Colour

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'A mind-expanding tour of the world without leaving your paintbox. Every colour has a story, and here are some of the most alluring, alarming, and thought-provoking. Very hard painting the hallway magnolia after this inspiring primer.' Simon GarfieldThe Secret Lives of Colour tells the unusual stories of the 75 most fascinating shades, dyes and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book Kassia St Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colours and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilisation. Across fashion and politics, art and war, The Secret Lives of Colour tell the vivid story of our culture.

If you want to fall back in love with colour, read The Secret Lives of Colour , A dazzling and vibrant history of colour, from Van Gogh's wilting yellow sunflowers to Turner's deadly green and Picasso's darkest period , This is a gorgeous book, Even Farrow and Ball don't know as much about the secret lore of colour as Kassia St Clair... Almost every page throws up an unexpected detail and insight... Extraordinarily full and interesting...An ideal crib and a valuable resource not only for the design-conscious but for students., The weirdly fascinating history of your favourite hues from an unwittingly deadly, arsenic-tinged green to Van Gogh's favoured yellow

Kassia St Clair studied the history of women's dress and the masquerade during the eighteenth century at Bristol and Oxford. She has since written about design and culture for the Economist, House & Garden, TLS, Quartz and New Statesman, and has had a column about colour in Elle Decoration since 2013. Her first book The Secret Lives of Colour was a top-ten bestseller, a Radio 4 Book of the Week and has been translated into over a dozen languages; her second, The Golden Thread, was a Sunday Times Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the Somerset Maugham Award. She lives in London.www.kassiastclair.com