Before Pantone, there was a 19th Century Colour Dictionary for Nature’s Poetry

“Streak from the eye of the kingfisher” for a buff orange. “Flower of deadly nightshade” for a brownish purple red. “Decayed leaves of none-so-pretty” for cochineal red. “Beauty spot on wing of Mallard Drake” for a Prussian blue. These were the poetic descriptions inspired by nature to describe colour in a book used by Charles…

The Wild Baroness of Greenwich Village Who Was the Real Artist Behind Duchamp’s Urinal

Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven had a life as rich as her name was long. She became the belle of New York’s bohemian scene in the early 1900s, donning feather crowns and bras made of tomato cans, making incredible art and befriending cutting-edge Dadaists like Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. Then, she kind of faded into history…

Night of the Living Painting

It was a flourishing trade in human flesh. A quest headed by art suppliers so ruthless in seeking out the perfect pigment, that it makes Dorian Grey’s creep-level look like amateur hour. It was the business of making “Mummy Brown,” a paint colour that quite literally required the ground up remains of mummies to achieve…

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The Picasso of Circus Art

History didn’t know what to do with Fred G. Johnson. On the one hand, he was just another hard-working Chicago teen in the signage business, and far from a classically trained portrait artist. Yet, there weren’t many in the sign painting game making banners for “Bearded Brenda” or “Huey the Pretzel Man”; “Josephine the Electric Girl”…

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When Adverts were Artworks

We pay attention to advertising a lot more than we’d like to think. At the bus stop, in traffic and even right here on this very website, helping me to keep this thing chugging away. But I’d like to make a plea to all those ‘Mad Men’ agencies, print designers and graphic artists– would it be possible to pick…

Before Pantone, there was a 19th Century Colour Dictionary for Nature’s Poetry

The Wild Baroness of Greenwich Village Who Was the Real Artist Behind Duchamp’s Urinal

Night of the Living Painting

The Picasso of Circus Art

Pssst! You've stumbled across content that is exclusive to Nessy's Keyholders.

When Adverts were Artworks

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