THE ORIGINS

The etymology of the title, Turner’s yellow, is regularly mixed up with the artist J.M.W. Turner who was famed for his use of light, often using tones of yellow to recreate sun light. It actually comes from James Turner, the chemist who patented the preparation of the pigment PY30 in England in February 1781. Turner wasn’t the first to discover the color: that happened in 1770 when Swedish chemist, Karl Scheele (of Scheele's green) stumbled upon lead chloride oxide/lead oxychloride when experimenting with soda. His discovery was made public in 1775 when it was announced in a lecture by his friend, the Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman. Although he wasn’t the founding father, James Turner had the smarts to patent the production process six years later and it was named after him.

The first Turner's yellow was made by grinding together two parts of lead and one part of sea salt into water. The mixture was left to sit for 24 hours before a caustic soda solution was poured off and the remaining white substance was heated and dried until it reached the desired shade of yellow. This could range from a light greenish yellow to a dark orange yellow depending on the temperature and the length of time it was heated.

IN THE ART WORLD

It was first manufactured at Walker-upon-Tyne and was sold as Turner’s Patent Yellow, with a company called C. Chaptal then setting up a manufacturing site in Montpellier, France. The pigment became popular with artists for being durable and bright, working well in oil and watercolor, but it was also unstable: blackening over time and in sunlight. A historic sample of the pigment from a wheelwright’s shop can be found in Hertford Museum in the UK. It takes the form of heavy, crumbly lumps, 1cm thick, which are dark on the outside, bright yellow inside. The artist would grind these himself to make up his paint. As well as coach decorations, Turner’s yellow was commonly used in domestic house paint and it was used to deccan be traced to the exotic, multi-colored scheme at Brighton Pavilion in England. By the early 19th century, the pigment was eventually superseded by chrome yellow, a more reliable color for artists to work with. Hurst, writing in 1904, comments that the color was “at one time largely used; but since the introduction of the chrome yellows, it has been gradually, and, perhaps, entirely abandoned”.

ON THE PALETTE

Liquitex Turner’s Yellow is an innovative modern recreation of the original warm yellow PY30, but with the added advantage of being stable and rated very good for lightfastness. Our acrylic is perfect for glazing: giving a translucent golden yellow that’s quite warm in mass tone but with a subtle green bias in a thinner layer. Brighter than an iron oxide, not as bright as azo or arylide yellow, it’s a purer yellow than the modern Naples yellow and more predictable when mixed with other colors, especially blues and greens.

You’ll find Turner’s Yellow in Liquitex Heavy Body Acrylic and Soft Body Acrylic as a Series Two color.