Recommended Books
These books have been chosen because they are aligned with our 21st Century multi-disciplinary focus on colour education, are easily accessible, and mostly free from common misconceptions about colour. Note that this compilation is a work in progress, and assessment of new materials for the list is ongoing.
Below is a short-list of our recommended books.
Click here for a long-list of our recommended books (updated December 9, 2022)
Colour Books for Everyone
Ball, Philip K. 2001. Bright Earth, Art and the Invention of Color. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
What does chemistry have to do with what we see? Color’s material relationship to natural pigments is profound and elemental. If you ever wondered why the colors in your paint box look and act the way they do, Bright Earth is for you. Philip Ball takes us on a fascinating tour behind the scenes to learn about the dynamic historical collaborations between chemists, artists, and designers that give rise to new colors.
Batchelor, D. 2000. Chromophobia. London. Reaktion Press.
Highlights the fear of color in history and sheds light on the variety of ways we, as humans, instill meaning to colour. A thought-provoking look at how our relationship to color is connected to culture, time, and individual prejudice.
Blaszczyk, R. 2012. The Color Revolution. Cambridge: The MIT Press
If you ever thought that color is merely decorative, this book is a game changer. Connecting the dots between transnational chemical industries that produce new synthetic colors and the massive growth of global markets in the 20th century, Blaszczyk shines light on myriad roles played by color in mass consumer culture.
Finlay, V. 2002. Colour. Travels Through the Paintbox. London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton)
An entertaining account of Victoria Finlay’s adventures as she travels the world to track down the sources of pigments and dyes used by artists and artisans from pre-historic times to the middle of the nineteenth century. As she explains in the preface: “There is a little theory mixed in with the journey but this is not the place to find detailed debates on colour harmonies or colour science. Instead this is a book full of stories and anecdotes, histories and adventures inspired by the human quest for colour.
Finlay, F., 2014. The Brilliant History of Color in Art. J. Paul Getty Museum.
Another entertaining volume on pigments from Victoria Finlay, consisting primarily of historical anecdotes relating to each pigment, accompanied by numerous illustrations of paintings and historical photographs, diagrams and artefacts.
Fox, J. 2021. The World According to Color: A Cultural History. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
Livingstone, M. 2014. Vision and Art: the biology of seeing (Expanded edition). New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Margaret Livingstone is a Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. In this fascinating book, she provides a bridge between science and art. She presents a concise account of the mechanisms of vision and shows how this can explain some striking effects achieved by artists. The book is superbly illustrated with clear explanations. It will appeal to the general reader as well as to students of physiology and art.
Ward, J. 2008. The Frog Who Croaked Blue: Synesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses. UK: Routledge.
Synesthesia is a fascinating phenomenon, where some people can hear colour, taste words or have numbers surround their bodies. Jamie Ward is one of the world’s experts on synesthesia, and in this highly accessible book, he chronicles many synesthetes’ experiences and presents a jargon-free discussion of the science behind synesthesia. A good read.
Recommended for Educators
Albers, J. 2006. Interaction of Color. Revised and expanded edition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
A pocket-book version of Albers’ classic work. A must for all students of colour. All middle school and secondary school teachers should read it and put it to practice in the classroom in some form or other. Can be studied all the way to post-grad university level and beyond.
Arnkil, H. 2013. Colours in the Visual World. Helsinki, Finland: Aalto University.
This handbook for art, design and architecture students and teachers is a revised English-language edition of the Finnish-language book Värit havaintojen maailmassa, which was published for the first time in 2007. The emphasis is on contemporary theories of perception and their relation to the aesthetic and functional and application of colour in art, design and architecture. There are appendices on e.g. lighting, a glossary of colour and light terms and each chapter ends with a set of assignments. The 2021 e-book version has updates and is available at the Publisher’s website, Google play and Apple books.
Arnkil, H. ed. 2012. Colour and Light - Concepts and confusions. Helsinki, Finland: Aalto University.
The aim of this publication is to clarify conflicting use of concepts around colour and light, and to suggest possible ways of improving interdisciplinary understanding in the area. Available only as PDF, downloadable free at https://shop.aalto.fi/p/175-colour-and-light/
Kuehni, R. 2012. Color - An Introduction to Practice and Principles (3rd edition). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
This book is an ideal introduction to the more scientific aspects of colour. Rolf Kuehni is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on the science of colour. In the preface he explains that his intention is “to provide a relatively simple but technically correct and up-to-date introduction to many aspects of color…. a contribution toward bridging the communication gap between technically and nontechnically oriented people by providing a nontechnical text that is reasonably comprehensive, short, and nonmathematical…. a stepping stone to more in-depth studies.” The book is well illustrated.
Kuehni, R.G. and Schwarz, A. 2008. Color Ordered: A Survey of Color Order Systems from Antiquity to the Present. New York, NY: Oxford University Press USA.
A very thorough and beautifully laid-out compendium for just about every colour order system ever created. The writers are top authorities of the subject. Single chapters may be accessed from the publisher’s website.
Osborne, R. 2004. Color Influencing Form. London: Thylesius Books.
Roy Osborne is a highly regarded artist, educator and author, awarded the Turner Medal in 2003 by the Colour Group (Great Britain) and the CADE Award (Colour in Art, Design and Environment) by the International Colour Association in 2019. Color Influencing Form is a compact, inexpensive, but authoritative coursebook for the study of colour in art and design. Chapters are concise but clear.
Reed. R., 2021. The New Munsell Student Color Set (Sixth Edition). Fairchild Books.
A complete learning package that offers opportunities for experimenting with color effects using paint, paper, and computers. A full-color interactive and experimental guidebook for understanding color in all its dimensions, it includes 11 Munsell color charts, 18 interactive charts, 13 hue families of perforated color chips, and a textbook, all designed to facilitate hands-on learning of color's aspects and effects. The text provides a complete study of color use and color science, including extended discussion of visual perception, optical effects, and practical application of color phenomena in fine and applied art practices.
Zwimpfer, M. 1997. Color: Light, Sight, Sense. West Chester, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
For someone who teaches colour (at whatever level) this book is an excellent introduction to the subject. Loaded with clear illustrations which are accompanied by easily understandable text. Amazingly still in print. A classic introduction to colour.
Recommended for Professionals & Specialists
Batchelor, D. ed. 2008. Colour/edited by David Batchelor (Documents of Contemporary Art). London: Whitechapel/Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
An anthology of writings on colour from Adorno to Wittgenstein and Apfelbaum to Whiteread in the famous series Documents of Contemporary Art.
Berns, R. 2019. Billmeyer and Saltzman's Principles of Color Technology (4th Edition). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
This a completely revised fourth edition of Fred Billmeyer’s and Max Saltzman’s a classic work that originally appeared in 1967. It covers just about every imaginable aspect of colour technology, combining the clarity and ease of use of earlier editions with two decades of advancement in colour theory and technology. Roy Berns, a former student of Billmeyer and Saltzman is Professor of imaging science at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Fridell Anter, K and Klarén, U. (Editors). 2017. Colour and Light – Spatial Experience. London & New York: Routledge.
This is an updated English language edition of the original Swedish Färg & Ljus för människan – I rummet (2014). The book is based on the interdisciplinary research project SYN-TES: Human colour and light synthesis – towards a coherent field of knowledge and includes contributions from thirteen Swedish and Norwegian researchers and professionals in the fields of colour and light. A must for students and teachers of architecture, interior design and lighting.
Gage, J. 1999. Colour and Culture. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
An incredible wealth of information and references of colour in art. Gage (an art historian) explains it in the introduction: “Colour is almost everybody’s business but it has rarely been treated in a unified way: thus my book opens and closes with instances of how a failure to look at colour comprehensively has led to absurdities of theory, if not of practice.” An absolute must for any serious colour professional.
Gage, J. Colour and Meaning: Art, Science, and Symbolism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
John Gage is the cultural historian whose infectious curiosity and encyclopedic research cracks open the vast world of color. Training his eye on the history of art, Gage leaves no stone unturned as he tracks the story of color across centuries, places, and disciplines as diverse as philosophy, linguistics, science, psychology, anthropology, and visual art. You will discover complex color codes that transform over time and place, due to changes in production technologies and the evolution of the symbolic cultural values they represent.
Hardin, C.L. 1993. Color for Philosophers – Unweaving the Rainbow. Expanded edition. Indianapolis, IN and Cambridge, UK: Hackett Publishing Company
A thorough examination of the physical and neurobiological facts behind colour phenomena and colour appearances. Hardin wrote the book for philosophers. As he remarks, they are fond of referring to colour as an illustration about epistemological and ontological truths, without really knowing much about the physical and biological reality of colour. An entertaining lesson in scientific integrity for us all. The book won the 1986 Johnsonian Prize for Philosophy.
Nassau, K. 2001. The physics and chemistry of color: the fifteen causes of color. New York: Wiley.
Comprehensive graduate-level text on science of colour. This classic volume studies the physical and chemical origins of colour by exploring fifteen separate causes of colour and their varied and often subtle occurrences in biology, geology, mineralogy, the atmosphere, technology, and the visual arts. It covers all of the fundamental concepts at work and requires no specialized knowledge.
