Today we’ll be talking about pigment and the ingredients of paint – that is, how a range of coloured substances, usually ground into powders and mixed with oil, water or another type of binder, have been the starting point for paintings from prehistoric murals to Pop art and beyond. We’ll be discussing how far an understanding of pigment has been fundamental to the painting of the past, including how certain colours have been valued or venerated – and we’ll explore what contemporary painters know, or need to know, about the materials that they use.

I’m delighted to be joined by two specialists who’ll be grinding the colours for our canvas: Molly Dorkin, head of research and a specialist in Old Master paintings at Dickinson in London, and – to give us a contemporary perspective – Neil Wenman, partner at Hauser & Wirth.

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