(applause)
Good afternoon everyone
I'm going to tell the story about how modern color entered our lives
about 160 years ago.
It changed our perception of color
our palate, our fashions, our vocabulary
everything.
I'm going to illustrate my talk with my botanical paintings.
I hope through learning more about the origin and history of color
that you'll come to have a greater appreciation of what you see.
I lived in Japan, where silk painting is a high art.
And now I live in Switzerland
where along with watches
Switzerland was once one of the world's largest producers of silk fabric.
In Basel I live nextdoor to the Alsace
which was also once a textile producing power house.
I got caught up in the magnificent textile history of this region
and I made this quilt.
The quilt covers over two centuries
but not to worry, I will save the most exciting three decades for you today.
(laughs)
These kind of quilts are an American folk tradition.
I intend for my pieces to be hung on the wall.
And when I start, I always start with white silk.
My interest in synthetic dyes originates with my art work.
In 1856 William Henry Perkin disovered the first successful
man-made, coal tar-based dye.
An early example of better living through chemistry
that went on to herald the development of several classes of dyes over time.
He studied at London's prestigious Royal College of Chemistry
under August Wilhelm von Hofmann from Germany.
Chemistry was not long out of the age of Alchemy.
Professor Hofmann's personal research interest was in coal tar.
It's the industrial waste from gas light that was the then modern form of lighting.
It was the Easter holidays
and Perkin was fooling around at home in his family's home workshop
and at Hofmann's suggestion he was using an analine of coal tar benzine.
And he discovered a precipitate that would color silk a pleasant shade of purple
So, he had just turned 19 years old.
He patents his invention, he drops out of school
he convinces his father to go into business with him.
And they begin manufacturing this purple dye.
Lucky for them purple was not a color that was easy to achieve using natural dyes.
Previous to this time brilliant colors had been reserved for royalty
and the prosperous.
However, the popularity of purple skyrocketed when Princess Victoria
and Empress Eugénie wore the colors.
London ladies of fashion renamed the color mauve, a new word in our vocabulary.
And soon, thanks to the less expensive fashion color
everybody was able to dress themselves in the new purple, or mauve.
When there's a good idea, and money to be made, many will copy it.
Perkin and Sons profited handsomely from their monopoly in Britain.
But on the continent, French and German dyers quickly copied mauve.
Germans had to work harder.
They didn't have strong patent legislation and they had to work harder
at production efficiencies and establish better marketing.
Up until this time France had dominated the natural dye market.
However
the next most important dye was discovered by a Frenchman.
Emmanuel Verguin
And he called it fuchsine.
The world had never seen a color quite so brilliant.
It was immediately much more popular than mauve.
Lyon based producers quickly secured the rights and began production.
They kept the prices high and chased patent infringers.
So the French dyers suffered from the monopoly
held by this firm called La Fuchsine.
And many French dyers went back to using natural dyes.
And there was an exodus of dyers to Germany and Switzerland.
Switzerland didn't have patent law at the time and Basel had lots of investors.
There was really a lot of money involved.
For example this man, Alexander Clavell.
He left Lyon having purchased the rights to produce fuchsine in Basel
for what would be in today's money 4.9 million US dollars.
So in the next ten years all throughout our region we begin to see
firms springing up that produce dyes and their intermediates.
And you may recognize some of these companies that are ancestors
of companies we know today.
And maybe a few of you work for them
or are related to them.
(laugs)
I am forever grateful for fuchsia.
Fuchsia is essential for the frame of this picece I made.
It's a large quilt.
Fuchsia is not a color that is optainable using natural dyes.
Back to professor Hofmann.
He was Perkin's former teacher and he's now the world's most important dye chemist
He's also working as a champion and cheerleader for the understanding
of the science behind new discoveries.
And he also discovers and important dye called Hofmann's violet.
At this time there's a lot of things happening in chemistry.
A chain of key discoveries.
And it's a very exciting time in chemistry.
Hofmann also returns to his native Germany.
At this time German firms are setting up the first research and development labs
to find that next important color or/and work towards medicines.
And the two Carls work at unravelling the chemical composition
of the natural red dye, alizarin, from the rose matter plant.
And they create its synthesis.
This is the first. The first ever synthesis of a relatively complex
naturally occurring organic material.
So now chemistry is mimicking or copying nature.
And I am forever grateful for red.
And I made this fabric. I couldn't have done it without red.
Indigo from fermented leaves is the only natural dye that can make a true blue.
Up until the turn of the century it was a major source of British wealth.
And London traders controlled the world's supply.
So as you can imagine, German manufacturers, armed with
new robust national patent legislation and the world's best chemistry
were very keen to create a synthesis.
And so eventually Adolf von Baeyer creates a synthetic indigo.
It was very complex science and it still took a really long time
to get up to production.
And at this stage we see that large production facilities
and lots of investment is needed to make synthetic indigo.
So we see the emergence of German cartells
that offer much more worldwide market control than patent monopolies.
And by World War One most of the indigo in the world is produced by Germany.
And it is synthetic indigo.
During the war, most countries didn't want to dye their soldiers' uniforms
with German dye.
And Swiss products replaced German ones.
(speaker and audience laugh)
As you can tell, I concentrate on the magical and romantic aspects of the story.
But I should just take a couple of seconds to mention
some of the disruptive technology.
The many people that worked in the natural dye industry in France and India
lost their livelihoods.
The early dyes didn't always behave like we might want them to.
And thirdly, making dyes and dyeing textiles requires vast quantities of water
Leading to releases of waste water.
Nature's self-cleaning capacity seldom, if ever, can take care of the problem.
And we begin to see in the 1950s complex industrial treatment systems emerge.
I use the ancestors of these dyes.
I made this fabric.
And I thank you very much for letting me share my enthusiasm for color
and the history of this region. Thank you.
(applause)