The core works in the Colour Reference Library (CRL) were assembled originally by Donald Pavey, an alumnus of the Royal College of Art who had intended to use the collection to write the histories of colour expression and colour symbolism. The library was later divided and sold to antiquarian book dealers, but was reunited on the open market by design historian Stuart Durant, another RCA alumnus. Durant substantially augmented the collection, with the aid of book dealer Ben Weinreb, before it was eventually sold again. It finally arrived at the Royal College of Art in 1977, largely intact, following a successful campaign by RCA librarian Hans Brill to acquire the collection for the College with the support of the Colour Group (Great Britain), the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers, the Inner London Education Authority, the Society of Dyers and Colourists, and many benefactors from industry. The CRL has developed with subsequent acquisitions, such as the purchase of the library of the Chemists’ Club of New York. On arrival at the RCA, the collection was originally housed in the former Yugoslavian embassy but moved to a purpose-built, climate-controlled space within the RCA Library in the 1990s, when it also received a HEFCE grant to undertake cataloguing and conservation. In 2009, many works in the collection were loaned to Tate Liverpool for the exhibition Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today.