For more than 20 years, Pantone has been choosing a color of the year. For 2021, however, the color influencer has chosen harmony over singularity. The color for 2021 is two colors, Pantone 17-5104 Ultimate Gray + Pantone 13-0647 Illuminating — soft gray and citron yellow reflecting strength and positivity, practical and rock solid but at the same time warming and optimistic https://www.pantone.com/color-of-the-year-2021. “No one color could get across the meaning of the moment,” Laurie Pressman, vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, told the New York Times. “We all realized we cannot do this alone. We all have a deeper understanding of how we need each other and emotional support and hope.”
To celebrate the pairing, we present a selection of art works that feature gray and yellow.
Mary Giles
waxed linen, silver wire
24″ x 4.5″, 1999
Sara Brennan
linen, cotton and wools
41.5″ x 36″, 2007
Micheline Beauchemin,
metallic and acrylic thread, cotton
25.25” x 21.25” x 2.25”, 1980-85
Løvass & Wagle
rainware, nylon stockings
45″ x 45″, 1999
Ethel Stein
mercerized cotton, damask
31.25” x 35.25” x 1.5”, 2011
Chiyoko Tanaka
handwoven ground fabric
12.5” x 26”, 1990
According to the Pantone Color Institute, “the two offer a combination of color whose ties to insight, innovation and intuition, and respect for wisdom, experience, and intelligence inspires regeneration, pressing us forward toward new ways of thinking and concepts. Emboldening the spirit, the pairing of Ultimate Gray and Illuminating highlights our innate need to be seen, to be visible, to be recognized, to have our voices heard.”