Colorists.

American Abstract Expressionist whose Burst paintings hung a sun-disk of red over a tangle of black on a warm cream ground.

"Gottlieb staged colour as cosmology — a red disk floating above a black tangle on a cream sky, the painting a creation myth in three notes."

Canadian-American minimalist whose pencil-ruled grids on pale washes hold dove grey, peach, and a meditative quiet.

"When I think of art, I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection."

German Renaissance printmaker and painter whose watercolours and engravings catalogued nature in patient ochre, green, and ink.

"Dürer treated colour with a draftsman's discipline — ochre and verdigris laid over silverpoint, every leaf and feather measured before it was tinted."

Anglo-French Impressionist whose Seine snowscenes balanced lavender, dove grey, and a low yellow sun.

"Sisley kept Impressionism in winter — lavender, dove grey, and the lowest pale yellow doing the work of an entire sky."

American painter whose dignified portraits sit in a signature grisaille skin against soft mint, butter yellow, and a cool pastel ground.

"Sherald paints skin in grisaille and sets her sitters on mint and butter yellow — the world a quiet pastel so the figure can hold the room."

French Fauvist whose Collioure landscapes set vermillion roofs against turquoise sea with no transition at all.

"Derain pushed colour past plausibility — vermillion roofs and turquoise sea touching with no apology, no shadow in between."

American Pop Art icon whose silkscreens of Marilyn, soup cans, and electric chairs ran in screen-print pink, lime, and electric blue.

"I think everybody should like everybody. And colour is the easiest way to make that happen on a Tuesday afternoon."

British-Indian sculptor whose pigment-coated voids and mirrored surfaces deploy ultramarine, vermilion, and the famously light-eating Vantablack.

"Kapoor uses colour as a void — vermilion and ultramarine dropped onto a surface until it stops being a surface and becomes a hole."

German-American Bauhaus weaver whose textiles balanced ochre, indigo, and cream into rigorous, gridded chords.

"Anni Albers worked colour at the loom — ochre against indigo, the grid built thread by thread until colour and structure are the same fact."

German painter whose vast surfaces of burnt earth, ash, straw, and lead read like landscapes that survived something.

"Kiefer treats colour as material — burnt earth, lead, straw, and ash troweled across surfaces that look excavated rather than painted."

American Photorealist whose vanitas still lifes mirrored airbrushed pastries, hot pink lipsticks, and varnished fruit.

"Flack airbrushed the vanitas — hot pink lipstick and varnished fruit pushed to a sheen that made the symbolism harder, not softer, to take seriously."

American Abstract Expressionist whose zip paintings sliced fields of cadmium red, ultramarine, and yellow with a single vertical line.

"Newman used colour as a wall — vast cadmium red split by one zip, the eye held to its place by sheer scale."

Brazilian painter whose carnival mandalas layer hot pink, lime, tangerine, and chocolate brown like cake decoration.

"Milhazes layers colour as if for a parade — hot pink and lime on tangerine on chocolate brown, every mandala a piece of Rio set to rotate."

British Op Art pioneer whose black-and-white stripes and curves vibrate against the retina, joined later by emerald and rose accents.

"The eye can travel over the surface in a way parallel to the way it moves over nature. The colours and the rhythms it finds are real events."

Italian architect whose Venetian interventions paired patinated bronze, concrete, and Murano glass with surgical light.

"I want to see things, that's all I really trust. Colour is a thing you see; it has nothing to do with theory."

British painter whose churning canvases dissolve flesh, fruit, and beasts into magenta, ochre, and a green that always smells of garden.

"Brown lets paint behave like a crowd — magenta and ochre and garden green pushing each other across the surface until something figural appears almost against its will."

American Photorealist whose mosaic portraits built a face out of thousands of small marks in pink, lime, and indigo.

"Close built the face one mark at a time — pink, lime, and indigo dots that resolve into a portrait only when you step back."

Swedish-American Pop sculptor whose giant hamburgers and clothespins ran in mustard, ketchup, and bun beige.

"Oldenburg painted the diner — mustard, ketchup, and bun beige stretched over canvas and vinyl until everyday objects became monuments."