Dark as a frame, not a room. Warm near-black pulled from the steel mills and foundries where he worked thirty years; the orange is tiger orange, his recurring symbol for struggle. Drama at the top and bottom, light in the middle where the art and the reading live.

RevisedArt, His-Story and Archives now sit on a warm bone band. Same palette, roughly half the darkness, and the artwork stops competing with the background.

Warm paper white — never pure #FFF, which reads clinical — with deep ink text and a single burnt-sienna accent. This is how the Met, the High and the Whitney actually hang him: neutral walls, art does the talking. Best for reading at length, and the safest choice for press and older visitors.

RevisedUnchanged where you liked it. Added one full-bleed dark moment for the quote and featured work, so a light page still has somewhere that grabs you.

Conservators analyzing his works on paper found he colored them with instant coffee, coffee with creamer, and Coca-Cola alongside burnt sienna, raw umber and yellow ochre. This palette is those materials — and now it uses the whole range of them, cream included, not just the dark end.

RebuiltYou were right: it was one brown in four shades. It now travels burnt-black → brown → full-bleed ochre → cream as you scroll, with grain texture on the dark sections so it reads like a made surface, not a flat fill.