About every two years the Colour Group invites a distinguished artist or art historian, to give The Turner Lecture, honouring Britain’s greatest colourist. A sterling silver medal is awarded to mark the occasion, and the recipient presents a keynote lecture related to his or her work.
Past Turner Lecturers
| 1998 | Peter Sedgley | |
| 2000 | Albert Irvin | 1922 – 2015 |
| 2001 | Martin Kemp | |
| 2003 | Roy Osborne | Telesio’s Colour Dictionary of 1528 |
| 2007 | Zandra Rhodes | The Only Thing Constant Is Change – A Life in Colour |
| 2009 | John Gage | Emulous of light: Turner’s colour revisited |
| 2011 | Bridget Riley | Colour in Particular with reference to works by the artist and other painters Unfortunately, illness prevented her from delivering the Turner prize lecture |
| 2013 | Kaffe Fassett | Glorious Colour |
| 2015 | Carlos Cruz-Diez | Reflections on Colour: video link from Panama to City University. A video made by the Cruz-Diez Foundation is here. |
| 2017 | Michael Craig-Martin | Colour in Practice |
| 2019 | Sarah Street | The Art of Film Colour |
| 2021 | Margo Selby | Weaving in Colour (available here) |
| 2023 | Barbara Flückiger | The Material Aesthetics of Len Lye‘s Experimental Color Films (available here) |