A Celebration of John Hersey’s 100th Birthday

This year is a very special year for Unison Colour. On the 25^th of June, we will be celebrating what would have been the 100^th birthday of our founder, John Hersey. To celebrate, we will be launching two brand new pastel sets as well as announcing plenty of opportunities for our artist community to partake in throughout the year.

History of Unison Colour

John was a student at the Byam School of Art in London when he won a scholarship to study in Rome. After several years of living in Italy, he returned to the UK and set up his own business ‘Fine Art Photography’ whilst simultaneously continuing his own artistic endeavours. Over the years he became more and more interested in and passionate about colour. John had always found inspiration in the clarity of light and subtlety of colour found in Northumberland, so in 1980 he moved with his wife, Kate, and their four children to an Old Rectory in Thorneyburn, right in the heart of the Northumberland National Park.

The humble beginnings of Unison Colour began when John decided that the manufactured pastels available on the market broke easily, were not consistent in texture and did not mirror his colour vision. For several years he worked on methods of production, colour sequences and the texture of his pigment mixtures. In 1987 he decided to offer the results to fellow ‘pastelists’. He and Kate took the original range of colour sets (then just 117 pastels!), and the kitchen dresser in which to display them, to an art materials show in London. To their surprise, there was an immediate interest.

Despite the various changes Unison Colour has seen in its 38-year history, the bare bones of the company remain very much the same. The soft pastels are still made to John’s exact recipes, and each one is tested against a master set which are nigh-on identical to John’s original range of 380 colours. Naturally, some adjustments have been made to account for changes in pigment, but our rigorous colour trials ensure the pastels remain consistent.

From the mixing of pigments, to hand-rolling each pastel, to applying each label, John’s legacy is keenly felt every day at Unison Colour. Our community of talented artists we have built over the years is a testament to John’s dedication and passion, and we are truly honoured to continue in his footsteps to create a product for people whose love and care reflects our own.

John’s Vision

“The excitement and beauty of charcoal on paper is obvious and its language is simple and straight to the point. Colour, however, always seems to be associated with people and places, or with decorative and descriptive ideas, never itself. Yet, in the paintings of Turner, Cezanne and Rothko, to name but three, colour sheds any impositions put upon it and becomes itself again, speaks its own poetry. Having decided to look colour in the face, as it were, we found (after many trials and errors) that we were really looking at the endless play of light, sometimes intense, sometimes self-effacing, sometimes running from place to place, but always remaining itself, undisturbed. So, we began to try and trace this dance, with whatever pigments were available, to see whether we could construct some kind of mirror to the magic. The present series of colours is the result. It is far from perfect, but at least it is an invitation to join the dance and look at the world of painting from the point of view of the sun, the whole of colour, rather than reducing colour to the assumptions that generally inform our personal point of view. Clearly, the pastels themselves must be second to none in their subtlety and intensity of colour, their fluency and responsiveness to touch, and in their delicacy and robustness.”