These are the stories of how colour has changed the world. 'Stories in Colour’ is a vibrant new podcast from the National Gallery in London.
In each episode, we uncover the hidden mysteries woven into colour from antiquity to the present day.
Along the way, you'll hear from curators, scientists, historians, artists, and more experts, looking at humanity’s efforts to make colour and make meaning with it.
And amongst these stories, you will see - and hear - the National Gallery’s paintings in a whole new spectrum of light.
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Have you ever wondered whether pink really is for girls and blue for boys? In our final episode of series two, Beks is joined by Dr Vien Cheung, Associate Professor at the University of Leeds, and National Gallery Educator Ed Dickenson to explore the surprising, gendered history of pink and blue.
We trace the rise of fashion's 'shocking pink', the cultural impact of the Barbie movie, and the enduring image of one of art history's most frequently depicted women dressed in blue. Listen to uncover how colour influences fashion, film, psychology, and even athletic performance – challenging assumptions about what pink and blue really mean.
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Vien is an Associate Professor at the University of Leeds, with a research interest in colour from all angles - from science and technology to psychology and philosophy, to art and design.
Ed started his teaching career in Japan before working as a primary school teacher in London. He has worked on the learning teams of several museums and galleries including the Horniman, Historic Royal Palaces, and Ben Uri Gallery. He has been a Gallery Educator at the National Gallery since 2017.
Video Producers: Jeanne Kenyon and Alessandro Sorenti
Editor: Oli Mason
Theme music: Theo Elwell
The hunt for the blackest black
Season 2 · Episode 7
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 • Duration 35:29
Today we're on a hunt with artists through time, searching for the blackest black. We’re after the deepest blacks, the most accurate blacks and the most atmospheric blacks.
Beks is joined by artist Stuart Semple to help answer questions such as: is black really a colour and how do we see the colour black?
Step back in time to the Palaeolithic era to discover ancient cave paintings at the Lascaux caves. Then jump forward in time to hear about the scientific breakthrough Vantablack and the debates it has caused.
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Stuart Semple is a multidisciplinary British artist whose work spans painting, performance, internet art, and installation. His work is known for its vibrant use of colour and techniques that challenge societal norms and question the role of the artist.
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.
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:
Decoding paintings through colour
Season 2 · Episode 5
Wednesday, June 17, 2026 • Duration 45:55
How do the colours artists choose – and the ways each of us experience them – help us find a story?
Join Beks and author Chloë Ashby as they take a closer look at how to ‘read’ colour in some of the National Gallery’s most iconic paintings. From Van Gogh to Caravaggio, they examine how different artists use colour to guide narrative, shape meaning and even evoke emotion.
Whether you’re an art lover or new to art history, uncover hints and tips for how to decode your favourite paintings through colour.
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Chloë is an author and award-winning arts critic. She is the author of Wet Paint (2022) and Second Self (2023). Her third novel, ‘Family Friends’, will be published by Penguin Fig Tree in summer 2026. She is also the author of two non-fiction books on art history: ‘Look At This If You Love Great Art (2021)’ and ‘Colours of Art: The Story of Art in 80 Palettes’ (2022).
A teenage chemist’s accidental discovery didn’t just revolutionise colour history – it sparked a viral Victorian colour craze!
Cultural historian Kassia St Clair joins Beks to uncover the story of mauveine – the world’s first synthetic aniline dye. Practically overnight, this striking purple became a mass-market sensation. Mauve reshaped Victorian fashion and left a legacy that stretches all the way from a laboratory in Victorian London’s East End to portraits of icons like Oprah Winfrey.
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Kassia is the author of books including 'The Secret Lives of Colour', 'The Golden Thread' and 'Liberty: Design. Pattern. Colour'. She specialises in telling stories about the overlooked and everyday.
What makes two volcano-born pigments so dangerous? Hint: they weren’t scorching hot when artists used them. Orpiment and realgar both contain arsenic, a foe we’ve previously faced on ‘Stories in Colour’.
From volcanoes to ancient alchemical practices, art historian Evie Hatch joins Beks to uncover the origins and histories of these orange and yellow pigments. Together, they discuss how orpiment and realgar have been used, where their names come from and the risks artists faced painting with them.
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Evie Hatch is an art historian specialising in the history and characteristics of artist pigments. She is the writer and presenter of Jackson's Art Pigment Stories series and author of the 2025 book ‘Pigment Stories: The History of Artists' Colour’.
Jacopo Tintoretto, ‘Christ washing the Feet of the Disciples’, About 1575-80
A blue more expensive than gold − ultramarine
Season 2 · Episode 2
Wednesday, May 27, 2026 • Duration 51:43
Travel with us beyond the sea to look at ultramarine, a pigment that was once even more precious than gold.
In this episode, writer Victoria Finlay joins Beks for a discussion on how researching ultramarine took her to Afghanistan. She journeyed to the blue mines where you can find lapis lazuli, the semi-precious stone ultramarine comes from. Along the journey, we pause to look at some of the National Gallery’s paintings – including one noteworthy for its lack of ultramarine...
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Victoria has written several books about colour - including 'Colour, Travels through the Paintbox' and 'The Brilliant History of Color in Art' - which involved travelling across the globe to the very places that ancient pigments and dyes came from. Her most recent book is about the hidden histories of fabric.
Welcome back to a new series of 'Stories in Colour'. To kick off, we’re tackling one of the topics we received the most questions about − synaesthesia.
Join Beks and this week’s guests, composer Dr Deborah Pritchard and leading expert on synaesthesia Professor Jamie Ward, as they set out to answer questions such as: What is synaesthesia and what might yellow sound like?
We are also joined in the studio by violinist Greta Mutlu and cellist Richard Harwood. They help bring Deborah’s own personal experience of synaesthesia to life through music.
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Jamie is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. He is one of the world's leading experts on synaesthesia and is the author of several books, including ‘The Frog Who Croaked Blue: Synesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses’.
Deborah is an award-winning British composer known for her work relating to synaesthesia. She has been performed worldwide by the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and more. She is Associate of The Faculty of Music, Oxford and the Royal Academy of Music and was Visiting Fellow at Keble College, Oxford from 2022-2023.
What does colour sound like? Why was mauve the brat green of the Victorian era? And is pink really just for girls?
Welcome back to another series of 'Stories in Colour', the National Gallery's vibrant podcast. Join us on a journey that travels from mines in Afghanistan, to the East End of Victorian London. Hear from curators, scientists, historians and artists, for fresh perspectives and unexpected discoveries.
The story of gold: modern imaginations (part three)
Wednesday, December 3, 2025 • Duration 58:54
When the artist Louise Nevelson immigrated to America as a child, she was told that ‘the streets... would be paved in gold’. Obviously, they weren’t, but that hasn’t stopped modern artists turning pretty much everything else golden. Even a toilet.
Join National Gallery Courses and Events Programmer Caroline Miller, Associate Curator of Contemporary and Modern Priyesh Mistry and host Beks in the final episode of our sparkling miniseries, where we look to uses of gold in modern and contemporary art. From glistening gold in Gustav Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’ to an artwork so valuable it has hardly ever been displayed. We explore what gold has meant for contemporary artists and how they have tested the limits of this sparkling colour and material.
Caroline is the Courses and Events Programmer at the Gallery. She develops online and in-person courses that expand access and engagement for the National Gallery’s audiences worldwide.
Priyesh is Associate Curator, Contemporary and Modern at the National Gallery where he works towards an ambitious programme to integrate contemporary art within the context of the museum and its historic collections.
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Robert Fludd, ‘Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia ... [Tractatus secundus de naturae simia seu technica macrocosmi historia]’, 1624 [Book] https://wellcomecollection.org/works/tymqmuxa/items?canvas=42
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Episode credits:
Guest: Stuart Semple
Host and executive producer: Beks Leary
Producer: Harry Rosehill
Researcher: Hannah Rogers
Technicians: Ian Warren, Tom Gulliver and Timothy Carpenter
Video Producers: Jeanne Kenyon and Alessandro Sorenti
Additional note: The 'National Gallery Imaginarium' digital experience features an introductory poem titled 'The Imaginarium' by poet and novelist Sir Ben Okri.
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Episode credits:
Guests: Dr Deborah Pritchard, Professor Jamie Ward
Musicians: Cellist Richard Harwood and Violinist Greta Mutlu
Host and executive producer: Beks Leary
Producer: Harry Rosehill
Researcher: Hannah Rogers
Technicians: Ian Warren and Tom Gulliver
Video Producers: Alessandro Sorenti and Amber Akaunu
Anselm Kiefer, ‘Aus Herzen und Hirnen sprießen die Halme der Nacht (From Hearts and Brains the Stalks of Night Are Sprouting)’, 2019-2020. Emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac, straw, gold leaf, wood, and metal on canvas, 185 ⅛ x 330 ¾ inches (470 x 840 cm) https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2021/anselm-kiefer-field-of-the-cloth-of-gold/
Maurizio Cattelan, ‘AMERICA’, 2016. Bowl: 18K Gold; Pipes and flushmeter: gold plated. 72,4 cm x 35,6 cm x 68,6 cm. Exhibition: ‘Maurizio Cattelan: “America”’ at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2016-17 https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/maurizio-cattelan-america
