Name: Terracotta Pot IB68
Brand: Ralph Lauren

I wish I had before and after photos on this project. My client, an art dealer, wanted a radical change of environment for her 50th birthday, and something to show off her collection of African art. When we started out this room was a grungy off-white and hadn’t been repainted in over 10 years.

Terracotta Pot is a burnt orange that runs almost brown, but it’s still quite luminous. I remember reading years ago that the first color adapted by a culture into its palette is usually red—think Greek red-figure pottery—and it makes sense to use something so elemental as a backdrop for this type of tribal art.

We did indeed completely transform this room, and it has an otherworldly quality to it that makes me feel like I’m not even in New York anymore. As my client says, “This is the best argument I’ve heard for dark colors yet.”

- Mark Chamberlain, interior and decorative painter