in memoriam

Anders Hård, renowned colour researcher, dies aged 86

Anders Hård. 

Photo Joakim Roos Scanpix

By Verena M. Schindler

The Chair of the ECD Study Group is sad to announce that the Swedish colour researcher Anders Hård, who served as the first chairman of the AIC Study Group on Environmental Colour Design from 1982 to 1988, died on March 6th. He was 86. He was a remarkable person and pivotal figure.

Dr. h.c. Anders Hård was an internationally renowned and influential colour expert, who promoted colour research on the basis of phenomenological and psychological phenomena. His capacity to analyse, evaluate and synthesize the elements and terms in the process of addressing theoretical and practical colour issues was underscored by his natural sense of curiosity, visionary enthusiasm and innovative sensibility. He played a noteworthy and highly successful role in the development of the Natural Colour System, as well as in the consolidation and leadership of the International Colour Association (AIC).

In June 1965, he presented his latest findings at the International Colour Meeting held in Lucerne, Switzerland. He was especially known for realizing a commission from the Swedish Colour Centre Foundation to develop a colour atlas based on the theories of both the German physiologist Ewald Hering (1834-1918) and the Swedish physicist Tryggve Johansson (1905-1960).

At the first AIC Congress in Stockholm in 1969, he revealed the prototype for the NCS Atlas. He further conducted significant interdisciplinary colour research in Sweden and other countries. Together with the psychologist Lars Sivik and the physicist Gunnar Tonnquist, he aimed to establish a universal colour language, which eventually became the NCS – Natural Color System®©.

First published in 1979 and celebrating its 30th anniversary on May 14, 2009, the NCS Colour Atlas was represented as a planetary system with a regular form of a double cone whose upper tip is white and lower one black. Four basic colours – yellow, red, blue and green – are positioned on the circumference of the circular base. In some countries the NCS has come to be recognized as a major professional tool and in others it is even more distinguished as the national standard. A basis for the understanding of such a colour order system were his many articles, publications and lectures, in Swedish and English. As well, he was an Associate Research Professor at the Centre for the Built Environment of the Department of Architecture at Chalmers University of Technology.

He was elected to the AIC Executive Committee for the term 1982-1985. In 1983 he organized the memorable AIC Forsius Symposium on Color Order Systems in Kungälv, Sweden. His talks delivered at many AIC meetings were especially stimulating and important because of their pioneering character, uniting design and scientific approaches and research. In 2008, he honoured the AIC audience by attending the AIC Interim Meeting, organized by the Swedish Colour Centre Foundation.

In 1989, Anders Hård was awarded the Doctor honoris causa degree by the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. As well, he received the prestigious AIC Judd Award, together with Lars Sivik and Gunnar Tonnquist, in 1997.

Tomas Hård, one of his children, is today Managing Director of the Scandinavian Colour Institute – NCS – Sweden. Most sincere condolences and sympathy to his family and friends.

Selected Bibliography:

Anders Hård and Lars Sivik. 1979. “Outlines of a Theory of Colours in Combination,” in Man-Environment Systems 9: 217-228.

Anders Hård and Lars Sivik. 1981. “NCS – Natural Color System: A Swedish Standard for Colour Notation,” in Color Research and Application 3.

Lars Sivik and Anders Hård. 1994. “Some Reflections on Studying Colour Combinations,” in Color Research and Application 19: 286-295.

Anders Hård and Åke Svedmyr. 1995. Färgsystemet NCS. (Färgantologi Bok 1), Byggforskningsrådet, Stockholm. ISBN 91-540-5694-2 (Swedish)

Anders Hård, Rikard Küller, Lars Sivik, Åke Svedmyr. 1995. Upplevelse av Färg och Färgsatt Miljö. (Färgantologi Bok 2), Byggforskningsrådet, Stockholm. ISBN 91-540-5696-9 (Swedish)

Anders Hård and Lars Sivik. 2001. “A Theory of Colors in Combination. A Descriptive Model Related to the NCS Color Order System,” in Color Research and Application, 26: 4-28.

Anders Hård and Kristina Enberg. 2009. “NCS – The Natural Colour System for Denotation of Colour,” in Colour for Architecture Today, edited by Tom Porter and Byron Mikellides, Taylor & Francis, 2nd edition, pp. 54-59. ISBN-13: 978-0415438155

See also recent publications, including the NCS:

SPILLMANN, Werner (Ed.). 2009. Farb-Systeme 1611-2007. With texts by Verena M. Schindler, Stefanie Wettstein, Isabel Haupt and Lino Sibillano, and an introduction by Karl Gerstner, Schwabe Verlag, Basel. ISBN 978-3-7965-2517-9 (German)

KUEHNI Rolf G. and Andreas SCHWARZ. 2008. Color Ordered. A Survey of Color Order Systems from Antiquity to the Present. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 978-0-19-518968-1 (English)