Meet mellow, optimistic Yellow Medium Azo, made with pigment PY74. Part of the azo family of reds, oranges and yellows, it’s a synthetic organic pigment giving a semi-opaque warm yellow with a reddish tint. In the Liquitex range this is a Series 2 color.

ORIGIN STORY

Where does its story start? The azo pigment is a synthetic organic originally developed by the German Hoechst company in the early 1900s and first became popular as a textile dye. The yellows were first released by Hoechst under the Hansa brand name and are now known as the arylide yellows. Other arylides include Hansa yellow G (PY1), which was first released in 1909, and Hansa yellow 10G (PY3), which came out in 1910. Yellow Medium Azo (PY74) is often called Hansa medium yellow or primary yellow, and PY97 is a warmer version, often known as Hansa yellow deep.

The color name is reported to be inspired by the Hanseatic League - the title of a European medieval alliance of guilds and trades commonly called The Hansa. Hanse is the Old High German word for a band or troop. It’s said that the German manufacturer Hoechst wanted to focus on the quality, stability and credibility of their new pigment, defining it as a reliable industrial product, above the mass low quality colors being produced elsewhere. Originally intended for the printing industry as an ink, artists' paint manufacturers swiftly recognized its potential and incorporated it into their products.

IN THE STUDIO

Grab a knife and get mixing. Yellow Medium Azo’s low tinting strength is one of its superpowers, giving brilliantly subtle, vibrant greens when mixed with blues. Moderately staining, more transparent than Cadmium Yellow, it can be used on the palette in all kinds of ways. Mix with black to reveal its high chroma level and create some interesting moody greens – particularly useful when you want to give the impact of light being transmitted through leaves. Its red facet can help dial up botanical olives for landscape and military scenes. Clean and vibrant, PY74 sits near its warmer sibling Yellow Orange Azo in the Liquitex range. Play around with it as a mixing primary to achieve a spectrum of clean secondary and tertiary colors. Or explore its semi-transparency through techniques including glazing and watercolor effects.

YELLOW MEDIUM AZO IN THE ART WORLD

Developed before WW1: why does PY74 and its cousins remain so popular? We find arylide yellow on the palettes and canvases of master painters such as Francis Bacon and contemporary drip maestro Jackson Pollock. Yellow Medium Azo is similar in hue to cadmium yellow and many artists concerned about the use of heavy metals have switched over. Extra bright and with a high tinting strength, it goes further in mixtures. It’s also less expensive and weighs less per ounce, which is important when using volume. As well as in fine art paints, Yellow Medium Azo is used for industrial colorants including commercial plastics, building paints and printing inks.

Find Yellow Medium Azo in Liquitex Bio-Based, Heavy Body, Soft Body, Acrylic Ink, Acrylic Marker and Spray Paint.