Color Problems

Originally published in 1902, Color Problems examines the theory of color in 117 conceptual plates by Emily Noyes Vanderpoel. Emily Noyes Vanderpoel (1842-1939) was an artist, collector, scholar, and historian working at the dawn of the 20th century. Her first and most prominent work, Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color, provides a comprehensive overview of the main ideas of color theory at the time, as well as her wildly original approaches to color analysis and interaction. Through a 21st century lens, she appears to stumble upon midcentury design and minimalism decades prior to those movements. Presenting her work as a painting manual under the guise and genre of flower painting and the decorative arts— subjects considered “appropriate” for a woman of her time—she was able to present a thoroughly studied, yet uniquely poetic, approach to color theory that was later taken up and popularized by men