NullPointerException from tring to get seperate RGB components

I am trying to get the seperate RGB components from each element in a 2D color array,but it keeps throwing a NullPointerException and I am not sure why. It might be something small that I missed, so some help would be really appreciated.

CODE:

    Color[][] grid = new Color[MaxColors][MaxColors];

    int R1 = 0;


    for(int x = 0; x < N; x++){
        for(int y = 0; y < N; y++){


            R1 = grid[x][y].getRed(); 
            /* do something with R1*/



        }
    }

I also tried to first add the colors to a list and and then convert it to a one-dimensional array. But I still get the same error.

    List<Color> colorList = new ArrayList<Color>();

    for(int x = 0; x < N; x++){
        for(int y = 0; y < N; y++){


            colorList.add(grid[x][y]);

        }
    }

    Color[] SortColors = colorList.toArray(new Color[colorList.size()]);       

    for(int x = 0; x < SortColors.length; x++){

        R1 = SortColors[x].getRed();
       System.out.print(" " + SortColors[x]);
       System.out.print(" " + R1);

    }

It prints the following:

java.awt.Color[r=98,g=85,b=217] 98 java.awt.Color[r=254,g=110,b=177] 254Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.NullPointerException at DrawGrid.ColourSorting.sortColours(ColourSorting.java:43)

Some help would be great. thank you!