LONDON.- Winsor & Newton, the world’s leading supplier of fine art materials and the Royal Academy of Arts have today announced a new creative and digital partnership for 2017. The collaboration will see two films created, which will illuminate the medium and materiality of paint, revealing the techniques of painting masters past and present and the contemporary practice of artists today. The first will be on Exploring Water colour and the second on History & Heritage.
Ever since chemist, William Winsor, and artist, Henry Newton, formed their invaluable partnership in 1832, bringing together scientific knowledge and artistic prowess, Winsor & Newton has been dedicated to inventing the finest quality materials in direct response to the needs of artists. Sharing a desire to support artistic endeavour and excellence, the Royal Academy and Winsor & Newton will build on a long heritage of equipping artists with technical best practice and the means to innovate.
Exploring the medium of water colour in the studio of the Royal Academy’s President and renowned painter, Christopher Le Brun PRA, the two films will reveal professional insights into the history and myths of the medium and the inspiration behind Le Brun’s practice. Later in 2017, Winsor & Newton and the RA will also be creating a film exploring the story and development of colour, its chemical and cultural origins, the philosophy of pigmentation and its impact on artists’ practice.
EXPLORE WATER COLOUR FILM
The first film features Christopher Le Brun in his London studio. He discusses the relationship between paint, colour and light, describing water colour as “the finest medium we have to deploy colour that anyone has ever invented.”
Invoking the great water colourists of the past, Christopher shares his thoughts on the expressive capability of the medium and the robust quality of the material. He draws particular attention to the origins of French Ultramarine, a blue pigment which in its natural form is from the semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli, which is found in the mountains of Afghanistan. The blue pigment was famously used in the painting, ‘ Bacchus and Ariadne’ (1520-3) by Titian, (National Gallery). The development of synthetic pigment dates back to the 1820’s. JMW Turner was the first artist approved to use synthetic ultramarine and subsequent twentieth century artists embraced the pigment, most famously, French artist, Yves Klein.
In this second film, Christopher Le Brun looks to a past Royal Academician, and one of the greatest British painting masters of all time, JMW Turner, to understand more about the shared history between Winsor & Newton and the Royal Academy and looking back to the foundations of the company in 1832.
JMW Turner had a close personal relationship with the chemist, William Winsor, who supported the artist’s experimental and innovative means of expression through the technical developments he was pioneering with the production of the company’s new colour pigments.
When Winsor voiced his concern over Turner’s lack of forward thinking as to paints and permanence, Turner’s response was: “Your business Winsor is to make colours. Mine is to use them.”
Pigments found within Turner’s water colours include Winsor & Newton’s Gamboge and King’s Yellow, which has inspired today’s Professional Water Colour paint, ‘Turner’s Yellow’. Turner is today recognised as one of the most important artists to have transformed water colour into the practice of major art and inspiring generations of artists, from the American abstract painter, Mark Rothko to Christopher Le Brun himself.
