Mary Gartside

Mary Gartside (c. 1755-1819) was an English water colourist and colour theorist. She published three books between 1805 and 1808. In chronological and intellectual terms Mary Gartside can be regarded an exemplary link between Moses Harris, who published his short but important Natural System of Colours around 1766, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s highly influential theory Zur Farbenlehre, first published in 1810. Gartside's colour theory was published privately under the disguise of a traditional water colouring manual. She is the first recorded woman known to have published a theory of colour.