Little Shop of Colours

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Arts and culture

Summary

L Cornelissen & Son, located near London's British Museum, has been supplying artists with since the 19th century. Cathy FitzGerald discovers the stories hiding among the paints and pigments

Review

Anna Jones

Dr Cathy FitzGerald, the woman behind the sublime Moving Pictures series on Radio 4, is an expert at defying expectations as to what radio can and cannot do.

In this documentary from 2017, she sits patiently inside an art supplies shop called L Cornelissen & Son, which has been located close to the British Museum since 1855 and retains its wooden Victorian fittings. These include pull-out drawers filled with pastels of every imaginable hue, and jars of paint pigments arranged in a mind-blowing, prismatic order that dazzle upon entry.

It is a veritable cornucopia of colour and Fitzgerald manages to paint an audio picture that brings this to life for us as she talks to some of the shop’s customers — everyday artists — about what they are making and why. Properly magical.

Little Shop of Colours

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