look for colormap in rcParams['axes.prop_cycle'] (mpl 1.5+) first

doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.0.txt

@@ -227,8 +227,7 @@ Bug Fixes
 
 - Bug in parsing timezone offset strings with non-zero minutes (:issue:`11708`)
 
-
-
+- Bug in ``df.plot`` using incorrect colors for bar plots under matplotlib 1.5+ (:issue:`11614`)
 
 - Bug in ``.loc`` result with duplicated key may have ``Index`` with incorrect dtype (:issue:`11497`)
 - Bug in ``pd.rolling_median`` where memory allocation failed even with sufficient memory (:issue:`11696`)

pandas/tests/test_graphics.py

@@ -3716,6 +3716,24 @@ def test_plain_axes(self):
         Series(rand(10)).plot(ax=ax)
         Series(rand(10)).plot(ax=iax)
 
+    def test_passed_bar_colors(self):
+        import matplotlib as mpl
+        color_tuples = [(0.9, 0, 0, 1), (0, 0.9, 0, 1), (0, 0, 0.9, 1)] 
+        colormap = mpl.colors.ListedColormap(color_tuples)
+        barplot = pd.DataFrame([[1,2,3]]).plot(kind="bar", cmap=colormap)
+        self.assertEqual(color_tuples, [c.get_facecolor() for c in barplot.patches])
+
+    def test_rcParams_bar_colors(self):
+        import matplotlib as mpl
+        color_tuples = [(0.9, 0, 0, 1), (0, 0.9, 0, 1), (0, 0, 0.9, 1)]
+        try: # mpl 1.5
+            with mpl.rc_context(rc={'axes.prop_cycle': mpl.cycler("color", color_tuples)}):
+                barplot = pd.DataFrame([[1,2,3]]).plot(kind="bar")
+        except (AttributeError, KeyError): # mpl 1.4
+            with mpl.rc_context(rc={'axes.color_cycle': color_tuples}):
+                barplot = pd.DataFrame([[1,2,3]]).plot(kind="bar")
+        self.assertEqual(color_tuples, [c.get_facecolor() for c in barplot.patches])
+
 
 @tm.mplskip
 class TestDataFrameGroupByPlots(TestPlotBase):
@@ -3763,7 +3781,6 @@ def test_plot_submethod_works(self):
         df.groupby('z')['x'].plot.line()
         tm.close()
 
-
 def assert_is_valid_plot_return_object(objs):
     import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
     if isinstance(objs, np.ndarray):

pandas/tools/plotting.py

@@ -163,8 +163,11 @@ def _get_standard_colors(num_colors=None, colormap=None, color_type='default',
         if color_type == 'default':
             # need to call list() on the result to copy so we don't
             # modify the global rcParams below
-            colors = list(plt.rcParams.get('axes.color_cycle',
-                                           list('bgrcmyk')))
+            try:
+                colors = [c['color'] for c in list(plt.rcParams['axes.prop_cycle'])]
+            except KeyError:
+                colors = list(plt.rcParams.get('axes.color_cycle',
+                                               list('bgrcmyk')))
             if isinstance(colors, compat.string_types):
                 colors = list(colors)
         elif color_type == 'random':