Working in Colour: A History of Prints and Their Pigments

Small exhibition at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham looking at the use of colour in prints.

 
The show spanned four centuries in about 15 prints the earliest being from 1688 . The show talked through the different colouring techniques from hand painting, and I loved the idea of the teams of largely female hand colourists of 19th satirical prints, to prints on coloured paper and use of multiple blocks.
 
I loved an Edward Lear lithograph of a parakeet from one of the first British books on ornithology which was an interesting comparison with a Max Ernst of “Birds in Green Rain”.

Closed on 10 June 2018



 

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