In this paper segmentation of colour images is treated as a problem of classification of colour pixels. A hierarchical modular neural network for classification of colour pixels is presented. The network combines different learning techniques, performs analysis in a rough to fine fashion and enables to obtain a high average classification speed and a low classification error. Experimentally, we have shown that the network is capable of distinguishing among the nine colour classes that occur in an image. A correct classification rate of about 98% has been obtained even for two very similar black colours.