Pantone Reveals Color of the Year 2020: PANTONE® 19-4052 Classic Blue

A Reassuring Presence Instilling Calm, Confidence, And Connection

Tapping into sight, sound, smell, taste, and texture Pantone makes PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue the first multi-sensory Color of the Year in the company’s history.

Pantone, provider of professional color language standards and digital solutions, today announced PANTONE 19-4052, Classic Blue, as the Pantone® Color of the Year for 2020; a timeless and enduring hue elegant in its simplicity. Suggestive of the sky at dusk, the reassuring qualities of the thought-provoking PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue highlight our desire for a dependable and stable foundation from which to build as we cross the threshold into a new era.

Pantone Reveals Color of the Year 2020: PANTONE® 19-4052 Classic Blue

“We are living in a time that requires trust and faith. It is this kind of constancy and confidence that is expressed by PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue, a solid and dependable blue hue we can always rely on,” said Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute. “Imbued with a deep resonance, PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue provides an anchoring foundation. A boundless blue evocative of the vast and infinite evening sky, PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue encourages us to look beyond the obvious to expand our thinking; challenging us to think more deeply, increase our perspective and open the flow of communication.”

The Color of the Year selection process requires thoughtful consideration and trend analysis. To arrive at the selection each year, Pantone’s color experts at the Pantone Color Institute comb the world looking for new color influences. This can include the entertainment industry and films in production, traveling art collections and new artists, fashion, all areas of design, popular travel destinations, as well as new lifestyles, playstyles, and socio-economic conditions. Influences may also stem from new technologies, materials, textures, and effects that impact color, relevant social media platforms and even up-coming sporting events that capture worldwide attention. For 21 years, Pantone’s Color of the Year has influenced product development and purchasing decisions in multiple industries, including fashion, home furnishings, and industrial design, as well as product packaging and graphic design. Past selections for Color of the Year include:

• PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral (2019)
• PANTONE 18-3838 Ultra Violet (2018)
• PANTONE 15-0343 Greenery (2017)
• PANTONE 15-3919 Serenity and PANTONE 13-1520 Rose Quartz (2016)
• PANTONE 18-1438 Marsala (2015)
• PANTONE 18-3224 Radiant Orchid (2014)
• PANTONE 17-5641 Emerald (2013)
• PANTONE 17-1463 Tangerine Tango (2012)
• PANTONE 18-2120 Honeysuckle (2011)
• PANTONE 15-5519 Turquoise (2010)
• PANTONE 14-0848 Mimosa (2009)
• PANTONE 18-3943 Blue Iris (2008)
• PANTONE 19-1557 Chili Pepper (2007)
• PANTONE 13-1106 Sand Dollar (2006)
• PANTONE 15-5217 Blue Turquoise (2005)
• PANTONE 17-1456 Tigerlily (2004)
• PANTONE 14-4811 Aqua Sky (2003)
• PANTONE 19-1664 True Red (2002)
• PANTONE 17-2031 Fuchsia Rose (2001)
• PANTONE 15-4020 Cerulean (2000)

The color selected as the Pantone Color of the Year 2020 was taken from the Pantone Fashion, Home + Interiors Color System, the most widely used and recognized color standards system for fashion, textile, home, and interior design.

Imprinted in our psyches as a restful color, PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue brings a sense of peace and tranquility to the human spirit, offering refuge. Aiding concentration and bringing laser-like clarity, PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue re-centers our thoughts. A reflective blue tone, Classic Blue fosters resilience.

As technology continues to race ahead of the human ability to process it all, it is easy to understand why we gravitate to colors that are honest and offer the promise of protection. Non-aggressive and easily relatable, the trusted PANTONE 19-4052, Classic Blue lends itself to relaxed interaction. Associated with the return of another day, this universal favorite is comfortably embraced.

“The Pantone Color of the Year highlights the relationship between trends in color and what is taking place in our global culture at a moment in time, a color that reflects what individuals feel they need that color can hope to answer.” added Laurie Pressman, Vice President of the Pantone Color Institute. “As society continues to recognize color as a critical form of communication, and a way to express and affect ideas and emotions, designers and brands should feel inspired to use color to engage and connect. The Pantone Color of the Year selection provides strategic direction for the world of trend and design, reflecting the Pantone Color Institute’s year-round work doing the same for designers and brands.”

To fully bring to life the true meaning of PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue, Pantone has translated PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue into a multi-sensory experience. By extending the sensory reach of PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue, Pantone is hoping to reach a greater diversity of people to provide everyone with an opportunity to engage with the Color of the Year 2020 in their own unique way.

“As we all head into a new era, we wanted to challenge ourselves to find inspiration from new sources that not only evolve our Color of the Year platform, but also help our global audiences achieve richer and more rewarding color experiences,” added Pressman. “This desire, combined with the emotional properties of PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue, motivated us to expand beyond the visual, to bring the 2020 Pantone Color of the Year to life through a multi-sensory experience.”

Classic Blue in Fashion

PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue is a poised and self-assured blue hue elegant in its simplicity. Genderless in outlook and seasonless in endurance, this foundational anchor shade enables color mixes throughout the spectrum, as well as making a strong statement on its own. Emblematic of heritage but at the same time highly contemporary, versatile PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue takes on distinct appearances through application to different materials, finishes and textures from shimmering metallics, lustrous sheens and high-tech materials to hand crafted looks and more fragile fabrics.

Classic Blue in Beauty

In the ultimate display of personal expression, PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue makes a dramatic statement for eyes, nails and hair in a variety of finishes from glittery and glam to dusty matte.

Classic Blue in Home Décor

Offering the promise of protection PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue is a pervasive favorite for home. Creating a stable foundation from which to build, PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue injects creative confidence into interiors, transforming a space through unique color combinations and tonal statements. Easily applied across so many different materials, textures and finishes, PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue is a dependable blue that can take you in different directions expressing tradition and elegance as well as unexpected boldness.

Classic Blue in Graphic Design and Packaging

Because of PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue’s relation to the sky at dusk, something we see every day, it maintains a perception of dependability and constancy. A color we respond to viscerally as being trustworthy, PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue is an ideal shade for many applications of graphic design. This is especially true for packaging where PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue conveys the message of honesty, credibility and reliability that today’s consumers are connecting to.

“Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving” at the de Young Museum / March 21 – July 26, 2020

In 1930, Frida Kahlo first visited the United States, traveling to San Francisco with her husband, Diego Rivera. Ninety years later she returns to the de Young museum in the exhibition, Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving. Offering an intimate perspective on the iconic artist and examining how politics, gender, trauma, sexuality, and national identity influenced Kahlo’s diverse modes of creativity, the exhibition showcases a trove of the artist’s personal items from the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City, including photographs, clothing, jewelry and hand-painted orthopedic corsets, alongside about twenty of Kahlo’s paintings and drawings. The artist Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907–1954), is today an iconic figure, known as much for her intensely personal artwork as for her striking appearance. Kahlo began to paint while recovering from a nearly fatal bus accident in 1925, which left her unable to bear children. Kahlo famously married the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (1886–1957) in 1929. Their union was unconventional—they in fact divorced briefly in 1939—but they were both deeply interested in their art and revolutionary politics.

Nickolas Muray, “Frida with Olmeca Figurine, Coyoacán“, 1939.

Today, Kahlo is known for her unique personal style as much as for her extraordinary art practice. A celebrity during her life, now elevated to icon status, her image is instantly recognizable and widely reproduced. Memorialized in arresting self-portraits and myriad photographs, her image is as much an expression of her creativity as her paintings are. Both her art and style reflect her deeply held personal beliefs, which led to the creation of a magnetic and enduring icon.

“The gringas really like me a lot and take notice of all the dresses and rebozos that I brought with me, their jaws drop at the sight of my jade necklaces and all the painters want me to pose for them.” — Frida Kahlo, letter to her parents while visiting San Francisco, 1930

Guggenheim Museum Announces Holiday Hours

Benefit Events on November 13 and 14 Celebrated the Guggenheim Museum’s 60th Anniversary with Performances by Christine and the Queens and Kelsey Lu

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will offer special holiday hours, 10 am–8 pm, from Thursday, December 26, through Tuesday, December 31. During this time, the museum is extending its regular evening hours to 8 pm for an additional opportunity to view two major exhibitions in their final weeks: Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now, closing January 5; and Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, closing January 12.

1071 Fifth Avenue; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, New York; Architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Photo: David Heald © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York

On Christmas Eve, Tuesday, December 24, museum hours will be 10 am–4 pm. The museum will be closed Christmas Day, Wednesday, December 25, and open New Year’s Day, Wednesday, January 1, from 10 am to 6 pm. The Guggenheim Store will be open for an additional half hour before and after museum hours.

Other exhibitions on view include the Guggenheim Collection galleries, showcasing the museum’s rich holdings of early modernism with works by such artists as Constantin Brancusi, Marc Chagall, Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Joan Miró, and Piet Mondrian; and the Thannhauser Collection, a selection of paintings, works on paper, and sculptures that represent the earliest objects in the Guggenheim’s collection. Further information is available at guggenheim.org/exhibitions.

For tickets and general information, please visit guggenheim.org.

Macy’s Launches SoGifted, a Female Entrepreneur-Focused Destination for Gifts

In partnership with SoGal Ventures and powered by b8ta, seven Macy’s stores nationwide feature products from women-owned small businesses

This season, holiday shoppers can find the perfect gift at Macy’s from a host of female-led small businesses in the SoGifted shops at seven Macy’s locations nationwide. The SoGifted shops are made possible via a partnership with SoGal Ventures, the first female-led millennial venture capital fund investing in diverse entrepreneurs in the United States. Macy’s recently became a strategic partner with SoGal through a minority stake in the fund. The SoGifted shops feature a selection of products and gifts from women-founded brands in the SoGal community including Lovevery, toys designed by experts for your child’s developing brain, Neely & Chloe, a fashion-forward accessories range, and HidrateSpark 3, a smart water bottle that tracks your hydration, among others.

Open through January 2020, the SoGifted Concept Shops give Macy’s shoppers access to new brands that define what SoGal stands for: entrepreneurship, equality, and empowerment of diverse enterprises. Today, SoGal co-founders Elizabeth Galbut and Pocket Sun guide more than 65 companies, reaching a network of more than 100,000 entrepreneurs in an excess of 30 countries.

Macy’s launches SoGifted, a female entrepreneur-focused destination for gifts in partnership with SoGal Ventures and powered by b8ta, at seven stores nationwide (Photo: Business Wire)

SoGal Ventures is the first female-led millennial venture capital firm. Galbut and Sun started this fund after experience as entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. They believe in the power of diversity, borderless business, and human-centric design. SoGal invests in early stage diverse founding teams in the U.S. and Asia, aiming to be the strongest ally for their portfolio companies. Powered by the SoGal Ecosystem across 40+ cities around the world, they are galvanizing a brand-new demographic – millennial & Gen Z women and minorities – to take center stage in entrepreneurship and creation.

Founders Event – Elizabeth Galbut and OK Jewelry founder

“Our mission is to build a firm that embodies the cultural values that we want to see in the world,” said Galbut. “With the partnership at Macy’s we’re taking this a step further and giving in-store shoppers across the country an opportunity to discover and support female-led small business brands – so the next generation of women can be empowered to know that entrepreneurship is within their reach,” added Galbut.

This type of brand discovery spotlights Macy’s ongoing partnership with b8ta, operator of the Ark Marketplace platform that allows brands that traditionally haven’t operated stores to quickly set up new physical retail operations. The b8ta-powered experience enabled SoGal’s range of entrepreneurs to activate at Macy’s within a matter of weeks – with products ranging from Bon Temps herbal teas to unbreakable hosiery by Sheertex.

SoGifted Shop at Macy’s – Bon Temps Tea display table

Hidrate Spark display

For holiday shoppers, the fresh female-first lens brings diversity to Macy’s gifting mix, further reinforcing Macy’s newly established diversity and inclusion goals, which include increasing representation and advancing the growth of under-represented suppliers. Empowered offerings like TomboyX, a size and gender inclusive line of underwear and pajamas and Blume, a range of safe and sustainable feminine care solutions, highlight Macy’s commitment to testing new brands and categories. On the more traditional gifting side, Ettitude introduces sustainable bamboo pajamas and bedding essentials, OK Jewelry showcases its affordable high-end fashion jewelry, and Quirktastic supplies geek-chic graphic tees – perfect for the comics lover in your life.

Hidrate Spark display

Skin Inc. close up

The SoGifted shops are being supported by entrepreneurial focused events including a dedicated launch party with the female founders at Macy’s flagship location at Herald Square which took place on November 20 and a “For Women, by Women” panel discussion with the founders of Blume, TomboyX and Sheertex. In addition, there will be events throughout the holiday partnership including beauty and trunk shows, as well as wellness focused event content in January to bring in the New Year.

SFMOMA Presents Exciting Array of Photography Exhibitions Including Major Career Retrospective of Dawoud Bey

Exhibitions of Work by Elad Lassry as well as Lew Thomas, Donna-Lee Phillips and Hal Fischer Open This Winter

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) presents an exciting array of photography exhibitions in its Pritzker Center for Photography this winter and spring. Dawoud Bey: An American Project, the influential photographer’s first major retrospective in 25 years, will be on view from February 15 to May 25, 2020. The month prior, two exceptional photography exhibitions will open on January 4: Thought Pieces: 1970s Photographs by Lew Thomas, Donna-Lee Phillips, and Hal Fischer, which explores an intensely active period from the mid to late 1970s for this group of Bay Area–based photographers; and Elad Lassry, which includes three distinct groupings of new work by the Los Angeles–based Israeli artist that analyze the relationship between objects and their representations.

Bey has dedicated more than four decades to portraying underrepresented communities and histories. From portraits in Harlem to nocturnal landscapes, classic street photography to large-scale studio portraits, his works combine an ethical imperative with an unparalleled mastery of his medium.

Dawoud Bey, Mary Parker and Caela Cowan, Birmingham, AL, from the series The Birmingham Project, 2012; Rennie Collection, Vancouver; © Dawoud Bey

Featuring approximately 80 works, the exhibition, co-organized with the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, spans the breadth of Bey’s career, from the 1970s to the present. Organized both thematically and chronologically, it ranges from his earliest street portraits in Harlem (1975–78) to his most recent exploration of the Underground Railroad (2017).

“The power of Bey’s work comes from the marriage of his extraordinary formal skill as a photographer with his deeply held belief in the political power of representation,” said Corey Keller, curator of photography at SFMOMA. “He sees making art as not just a personal expression but as an act of social responsibility, emphasizing the necessary work of artists and art institutions to break down obstacles to access, to convene communities and open dialogue. It has been truly inspiring to work with him on this project.”

Describing his process, Bey has said, “It begins with the subject, a deep interest in wanting to describe the black subject in a way that’s as complex as the experiences of anyone else. It’s meant to kind of reshape the world, one person at a time.”

(Read peviously posted article here.)

Exhibition Venues and Dates

• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: February 15 to May 25, 2020
• High Museum of Art, Atlanta: June to October 2020
• The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York: November 20, 2020 to Spring 2021

Related Programs

A series of related public programs will be presented in conjunction with Dawoud Bey: An American Project, including a conversation with the artist and a robust film program. Advance tickets are strongly recommended, and will be available after January 2020 at sfmoma.org.

CONVERSATION
Dawoud Bey in Conversation with Leigh Raiford. Thursday, February 13, 6 p.m. Phyllis Wattis Theater

On the occasion of Dawoud Bey’s major retrospective Dawoud Bey: An American Project (opening February 15), the artist joins with Leigh Raiford, chair of UC Berkeley’s African American Studies program for a conversation. Moderated by exhibition curator Corey Keller, Bey and Raiford’s conversation will expand on the representation of blackness as an aesthetic and political act, and the role that photography plays in visualizing history. Free with RSVP. No museum admission required. For more details, see sfmoma.org.

SCREENING

Always Moving: African-American Portraiture in Experimental Film, Thursday, April 2, 7 p.m., Phyllis Wattis Theater

SFMOMA and San Francisco Cinematheque present an evening of artist-made film and video works that offer glimpses of lived experiences of black Americans, both public and private. Thanks to the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) for promotional support. $5 tickets available to SFMOMA, SF Cinematheque and MoAD members / $12 non-members. For more details, see sfmoma.org/film.

SPECIAL SCREENING

The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Saturday, April 25, 2 p.m., Phyllis Wattis Theater

This wistful odyssey populated by locals on the margins offers a poignant story of how hometowns are made and kept alive by the people who love them. Preceded by Tina Takemoto’s Wayward Emulsions (2018) and followed by discussion and Q+A with cast and crew, City College of San Francisco (CCSF) Cinema Chair Denah Johnston and California College of the Arts Dean Tina Takemoto. Organized by CCSF’s Film Club and Black Student Union. $5 students/members, $10 non-members. For more details, see sfmoma.org/film.

FILM SERIES

On Dawoud Bey’s “A Boy in Front of the Loew’s 125th Street Movie Theater” (1976), May 2–30

Bey’s photograph, A Boy in Front of the Loew’s 125th Street Movie Theater (1976), will be the jumping-off point for this series of films that screened at Loew’s 125th Street movie theater in 1976. Included will be Gordon Park’s Leadbelly (May 2, 2 p.m.), Lady Sings the Blues (May 16, 2 p.m.) and John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (May 28, 7 p.m.). $5 members / $12 non-members. For details, see www.sfmoma.org/Dawoud-Bey.

ARTIST FILM SCREENING

The Diaspora Suite (2010–2017), Thursday, May 7, 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m., and 7 p.m., Phyllis Wattis Theater

Ephraim Asili’s five-part series The Diaspora Suite, created over the course of seven years, is both a personal and global study of the African diaspora. Thank you to community partner the Museum of African Diaspora for promotional support. Free and open to the public, RSVP encouraged. For more details, see sfmoma.org/film.

ARTIST FILM SCREENING

An Evening with Brontez Purnell — Unstoppable Feat: The Dances of Ed Mock and other works, Thursday, May 14, 7 p.m., Phyllis Wattis Theater

Oakland-based writer, musician, choreographer and filmmaker Brontez Purnell hosts a special evening of films including his celebrated documentary that explores “Blackness, queerness and maleness and Southern-ness.” Presented in association with community partner Frameline. Free and open to the public, RSVP encouraged. For more details, see sfmoma.org/film.

Thought Pieces: 1970s Photographs by Lew Thomas, Donna-Lee Phillips, and Hal Fischer

January 4–August 9, 2020, Floor 3

Lew Thomas, 34th Avenue Between Geary and Clement, 1972; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, gift of Jane and Larry Reed; © Lew Thomas