If you have ever painted a petal that seems to glow from inside, or laid a sunset glaze that stayed clean and luminous instead of turning to mud, there is a good chance a quinacridone was on your brush. The name is a mouthful (say it kwin-AK-ri-dohn, or just "quin" like most painters do), and these pigments have an unusual history: born in a chemistry lab, raised in car factories, and now among the best-loved colours on a watercolourist's palette.
In this article I'll walk you through where quinacridones came from, what makes them behave the way they do, the main members of the family and how to tell them apart, the sad saga of quinacridone gold, and some practical ways to get the most out of them in your own painting.
A pigment from the motor industry
The quinacridone molecule was first made in 1896, then sat largely ignored for almost sixty years. In 1955 a DuPont chemist, W. Struve, recognised its potential as a pigment and worked out how to manufacture it economically. DuPont began selling quinacridones in 1958, and their first big customer was the car industry.
That origin explains a lot. Car paint has to survive years of harsh sun and weather without fading, so these pigments were engineered for durability from day one. The name itself is a blend of two chemical building blocks, quinoline and acridone, and the molecule is a chain of five linked rings.
Artists' paint makers soon followed the car makers. Acrylic and oil painters adopted quinacridones early, and Daniel Smith says it was the first company to bring them into watercolour, in 1993. Today the same pigment family turns up in automotive finishes, inkjet printer ink and tattoo ink, all places where colour simply has to last.
What makes a quinacridone special
Quinacridones share a handful of qualities that make them feel different under the brush.
Transparency. Light passes through a quinacridone wash, bounces off the white paper and comes back to your eye. That is the source of their famous glow, and it is why they are such good glazing colours.
Intensity. They are vivid, high-chroma colours that make clean, bright mixes, especially with blues and yellows.
Lightfastness. Before quinacridones, the pink-to-crimson corner of the palette relied on pigments like rose madder, alizarin crimson and carmine, all prone to fading. Quinacridones gave artists permanent alternatives. PV19 in particular is regarded as one of the most lightfast organic pigments in its colour range.
Staining. Most quinacridones stain the paper fibres, so they are hard to lift once dry. That is a strength for glazing (the layer underneath stays put) but something to plan around if you rely on lifting out highlights. Staining varies by colour and brand, so check the label.
A range from orange to violet. One of the most fascinating things about this family is that the hue depends not only on the chemistry but on the size and crystal structure of the pigment particles. That is why the same pigment number, PV19, can appear in one brand as a warm rose and in another as a cooler red-violet.
Meet the family
The colour names on tubes vary wildly from brand to brand, so the pigment code (the letters and numbers in small print on the label) is the only reliable way to know what you are buying. Here are the quinacridones you are most likely to meet.
| Pigment code | Names you'll see | Character |
|---|---|---|
| PV19 | Quinacridone Rose, Quinacridone Violet, Permanent Rose, Permanent Magenta | The workhorse. Comes in a warm rose form and a cooler red-violet form. Very lightfast. |
| PR122 | Quinacridone Magenta, Quinacridone Pink | A cool magenta, the same pigment used as magenta in four-colour printing. Some testers find it slightly less lightfast in watercolour than PV19, so test your brand. |
| PR202 | Quinacridone Magenta (some brands) | A bluish red-magenta, a little warmer than PR122. |
| PR209 | Quinacridone Red, Quinacridone Coral | A bright mid-red with a slight coral lean. Mixes well towards both orange and purple. |
| PR206 | Quinacridone Maroon, Quinacridone Burnt Orange, Brown Madder | A deep, earthy maroon. Now discontinued by its manufacturer and disappearing from paint ranges. |
| PO48 | Quinacridone Burnt Orange, Quinacridone Deep Gold | A transparent orange-brown, and a key ingredient in most modern quinacridone gold blends. |
| PO49 | Quinacridone Gold (original) | The legendary single-pigment gold. No longer made (more below). |
A tip for your shopping list: because brands use such different names, you may already own the same pigment twice. Before buying a new pink or magenta, compare the codes with what is already in your paint box.
The quinacridone gold story
No article on quinacridones would be complete without the tale of quinacridone gold, PO49. It was a warm, transparent golden yellow that painters adored for luminous greens, autumn leaves and glowing sunlit passages.
The trouble was that the car industry was its real customer, and when car makers moved on, the pigment manufacturer stopped making it, around 2001. The fine-art market alone was far too small to keep it going. Daniel Smith bought up the remaining stock, which lasted them about seventeen years. When it finally ran out, they reformulated their Quinacridone Gold as a blend of PO48 and PY150 (nickel azo yellow).
Other brands went their own way. Schmincke's version combines PY150 with PR101 (a transparent red iron oxide), and Winsor & Newton's is also a multi-pigment blend that has changed formula over the years. Golden Artist Colors lost its PO49 supply and renamed its paint Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold, then later lost PR206 as well, which affected its Quinacridone Burnt Orange and Quinacridone Crimson too.
So does any of this matter? Sydney sketcher Liz Steel swatched eight different quinacridone golds side by side, including an original PO49 tube, and concluded that for her purposes any of them would do the job, though she found some brands noticeably more orange or more free-flowing than others. That matches my own view: the modern blends are lovely paints in their own right, they just behave a little differently from the original.
Two practical takeaways:
- Read the pigment code, not the name. "Quinacridone Gold" on one tube may share no pigments at all with "Quinacridone Gold" on another.
- You can mix your own. Golden suggests transparent red iron oxide (PR101) with nickel azo yellow (PY150) at roughly four parts to one, adding more yellow if you want a brighter glow.
Original PO49 tubes still turn up for sale online, often at eye-watering prices. Unless you are a collector, I'd put that money towards paper.
Using quinacridones in your watercolours
Glazing
This is where quinacridones really shine. Because they are transparent and staining, you can lay a dry glaze of quinacridone rose over a dried blue wash and get a clean violet effect without disturbing the layer underneath. Let each layer dry completely, use a soft brush and a single confident stroke, and resist the urge to scrub.
Flowers
PV19 and PR122 are natural choices for roses, camellias, bougainvillea and grevillea. Try charging the colour into a damp petal shape wet-in-wet, then dropping in a touch of quinacridone gold or a darker quin near the base so the colours blend on the paper rather than the palette.
Purples and violets
A common frustration for beginners is mixing a purple that turns out dull. Quinacridone red (PR209) and quinacridone rose (PV19) both mix beautifully clean violets with French ultramarine, much brighter than you'll get from a cadmium or pyrrole red, which tend to push the mix towards brown.
Greens
Quinacridone gold (in any of its modern forms) mixed with a blue gives a lovely range of greens: soft olives with ultramarine, deep shadowy greens with indanthrone blue, and brighter foliage greens with a phthalo. This is a great way to get natural, slightly warm greens for Australian bush scenes rather than the harsh tube greens many of us start with.
Warm earths and skin
The deeper quins (PO48 and PR206 while you can still get it) make transparent, glowing alternatives to burnt sienna, handy for red earth, gum bark and rusty iron. Diluted quinacridone red brings a gentle coral warmth to skin tones.
Rich darks
Pair a quinacridone with its near-complement for deep, transparent darks: quinacridone rose with phthalo green, or a quinacridone burnt orange with a phthalo or indanthrone blue. These darks stay lively in a way that black from the tube never does.
Living with staining
Plan your whites before you start, and use masking fluid or careful painting around shapes rather than counting on lifting later. Quins can also tint your palette wells and brushes, which is harmless but worth knowing so it doesn't surprise you.
Try this: a quinacridone test card
If you have two or three quinacridones in your box, an hour with a scrap of good paper will teach you more than any article.
- Masstone to wash. Paint a strip of each colour, starting thick and juicy and diluting it as you go. Notice how a quin often looks dark and almost brownish in masstone and then blooms into a bright, clear tint.
- Lifting test. Once dry, run a damp brush across one end and blot with a tissue. This shows you how much each colour stains.
- Glaze test. Paint a stripe of French ultramarine, let it dry, then glaze each quin across it. Look at how clean the overlap stays.
- Mixing row. Mix each quin with one blue and one yellow and note your favourite combinations.
- Label everything with the brand and pigment code, and keep the card with your palette.
Final thoughts
Quinacridones are a wonderful example of how industrial chemistry quietly changed the artist's palette. They gave us permanent, transparent pinks, reds and golds where fading pigments once ruled, and for watercolour in particular their glow is hard to match. Some of the family are becoming harder to find, so get to know the codes, test before you commit, and enjoy the ones that are still with us.
Which quinacridone lives on your palette? I'd love to hear in the comments.
Sources
- Quinacridone – Wikipedia
- Quinacridone dye – CAMEO, Museum of Fine Arts Boston
- Fun Facts About Quinacridones – Daniel Smith
- Quinacridone Gold watercolour – Daniel Smith
- Quinacridone Red – Liquitex
- Alternatives to Discontinued Quinacridones – Golden Artist Colors, Just Paint
- Quinacridone Gold Comparisons – Liz Steel
- Pigment information for PV19, PR209 and PR202 – Utrecht Art Supplies
- Pigment information for PR122 and PR206 – Blick Art Materials
- Quinacridone pigment discussion – WetCanvas forums
