The art of colour

Exciting partnerships between paint companies and museums, galleries and heritage organisations offer inspiration for home decoration

- Rhiannon Batten

Since the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) reopened in June, one of its biggest crowd-pullers has been Joshua Reynolds' masterful Portrait of Mai. Painted in 1776, it depicts the first Polynesian to visit Britain and was secured for public display following a historic deal earlier this year. Spectacular though the painting is, however, some visitors have found their focus drawn not only to such works, but also to the walls on which they hang.

As with many such recent refurbishments, the NPG worked closely with several interiors brands as it reimagined its galleries and public spaces. Dorset paint company Farrow & Ball was invited to collaborate on the redecoration of several galleries on the first floor, where the idea was to use existing shades to expand on architect Ewan Christian's original 1896 vision for the building. Other partnerships however, including the Ashmolean Museum's collaboration with Graphenstone, involve generating new hues that visitors can buy for use in domestic spaces.

The NPG's chief curator, Alison Smith, says there were three main considerations for the decorative scheme - respecting the building, exploiting natural light, and showcasing the collection. 'We wanted something that had a period feel, but wasn't so precise as to match colours used in those particular eras,' she explains. 'Charles Lock Eastlake, the first director of the National Gallery [and translator of Goethe's Theory of Colours into English], said that wall colours should be lighter than the darks [within a piece] and darker than the lights, and I think that's quite a good principle for hanging pictures.'