(PRESS RELEASE) BERKELEY, CA – EnChroma, Inc. – creators of patented eyewear for color blindness – announced that The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art will participate in the EnChroma Color Accessibility Program. Based in Kansas City, Missouri, the museum is making EnChroma eyewear available to color blind visitors so they can experience a fuller range of color as they tour the museum’s collections.
The Nelson-Atkins initiative is being launched in conjunction with a traveling exhibition currently on display at the museum called Access + Ability, on loan from the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Access + Ability includes an exhibit on EnChroma color blind glasses and the condition of color blindness. The EnChroma glasses were also part of the museum’s Access + Ability exhibit at the prestigious, recently concluded World Economic Forum 2019 in Davos, Switzerland.
“We are committed to making the experience of everyone who comes to the museum as rich and complete as possible,” said Anne Manning, director of education and interpretive programs at the Nelson-Atkins. “It is exciting to be able to offer EnChroma glasses to our visitors who are color blind and know that we are making it possible for them to walk through our galleries and appreciate the range of color in each work of art.”
EnChroma has taken the lead in advocating for “color accessibility” with the launch of the EnChroma Color Accessibility Program. The program helps public venues, schools, state parks, libraries, museums and other organizations purchase and loan EnChroma glasses to color blind guests and students to make colorful exhibits, schoolwork, attractions and/or experiences accessible to the color blind. Other venues offering EnChroma glasses to patrons include the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Central Museum in Utrecht, The Netherlands and others.
“We are pleased to have the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art – with its beautiful grounds and colorful outdoor and indoor exhibits – join the EnChroma Color Accessibility Program and support accessibility,” said Andy Schmeder, co-founder and CEO of EnChroma. “Expanding accessibility for the color blind is clearly on the radar of the art world as more world-class venues continue to join us. We’re pleased that more color blind people will be able to experience EnChroma and participate more fully in the colorful world around them.”
Color blindness affects 350 million people worldwide – 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women (.5%). Backed by science, EnChroma lenses are engineered with special optical filters that remove wavelengths of light where the red and green cones have an excessive overlap in the eyes of people with color vision deficiency. This enables those with red-green color blindness to see colors more vibrantly, clearly and distinctly, helping them to overcome everyday obstacles and frustrations and access more of life’s colorful experiences. To learn more about EnChroma’s Color Accessibility program, contact accessiblity@enchroma.com.