The Paint Detective

In the 1980s Patrick Baty, The Paint Detective, produced a range of paint colours based on those offered by a Scottish house-painter in 1807, this sparked off the present wave of historically-themed paint ranges which are still seen today. In April 2000, Homes & Gardens described him as being “Undoubtedly the most influential of our (paint) experts…whose breadth and depth of knowledge is unrivalled”. In recent years, on two separate occasions, he has been employed by ICI (Dulux) and The Little Greene to develop ranges of traditional paint colours for English Heritage. Colour ranges have also been produced for the French and German markets.

The majority of Patrick’s time is now spent as a historic paint consultant, sampling paint layers on buildings, bridges and architectural details to produce a forensic history of the decoration from creation to the present day. He has worked everywhere from Culzean Castle in Ayrshire, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to Queen Charlotte’s Cottage at Kew, and even Tower Bridge. Frequently he is employed purely as an advisor on appropriate paint and colour in buildings of all ages.

This talk illustrates the range and type of projects that Patrick is involved with – from Tudor gardens to 1960s housing estates. Patrick will explain how he proved that a house with discreet Royal connections had doors from a building hundreds of miles away. He will also provide an update on a 15-year project at Stowe and describe finding a hidden mural in the Chelsea house owned by the painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

The lecture is for anyone with an interest in interior design, the use of paint and colour or decoration. It is a partnership between Jersey Building Preservation Trust, the National Trust for Jersey and La  Société Jersiaise.