Board masters: artists’ palettes as works of art – in pictures

From Piet Mondrian’s plain white smudge to the vivid flourishes of Egon Schiele, the palettes artists use to create their masterpieces are mysterious, vibrant creations in their own right (Picasso’s palette from 1961 recently fetched £56,250 at auction despite being made of cardboard). Fifty of these small artworks, smeared with their owners’ personalised spectrum of paint, have now been collected in a new book, many of them for the first time. “A palette is both a timeless blank canvas and the ultimate abstract work of art,” says the book’s author, Alexandra Loske, curator of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. “It is the most intimate and personal of tools, and perhaps the closest we will ever come to connecting with a long-dead artist.”

The Artist’s Palette with a Landscape c1878–80.

Photograph: Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA

Photograph: Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation, Munich

Photograph: Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center, Nyack. The Sanborn-Hopper Family Archive

Photograph: Courtesy Kunstmuseum Den Haag Piet

Photograph: Baltimore Museum of Art

Photograph: © Tate Images

Photograph: Munch Museum, Oslo

Photograph: Courtesy of Ressler Kunst Auktionen, Vienna

Photograph: Musée départemental Gustave Courbet, Ornans

Photograph: Freunde Worpswedes, Käseglocke Collection

Photograph: Ole Akhoej/The Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

Photograph: Colby College Museum of Art, the Lunder Collection, Waterville, Maine