The Color Wheel: Green

Each month, “The Color Wheel” will take a color-coordinated approach to exploring Condé Nast images. These color collections will help decorators and designers select images to inspire an environment, theme, or room.

Click here to view this article’s gallery of green photographs without Flash.

Our first hue is the color of the moment. From the environment to the economy, green seems to be everywhere.

If the September 1948 cover of House & Garden were printed in black and white, how appealing would it be? This issue’s “Color Is Cue” article devoted to the “national palette and its future,” asks, “If your rooms were stripped of color, how much charm and character would be left? Color is the cue, which can make great decorating out of the simplest elements.”

Model in green dress, photographed by John Rawlings in the July 15, 1943 Vogue

From its inception in 1946, House & Garden’s annual Color Program developed a color guide and a yearly forecast in collaboration with hundreds of home furnishing manufacturers. The 1958 palette—Bitter Green, Bronze Green, Peacock Green, Mist Green, and Green Olive—suggests a range of styles and emotions. As color consultant Faber Birren wrote in the September 1957 issue: “The beauty of color is a mirror of the human spirit—ages old and yet eternally new… and interior decoration is less a process of creation in color than inventiveness in fresh interpretations that draw from the riches of the past.”

Green might conjure visions of evergreens, emeralds, camouflage, or currency. It can symbolize hope and growth, regeneration and renewal. Although green is not one of the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue), it is the perfect shade to kick off “The Color Wheel.” It also presents a complement to the next color in this series: red.