Color blind visitors to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam will now be able to enjoy the vibrant art masterpieces in fuller color with special glasses created by EnChroma, a Berkeley, California-headquartered developer of eyewear for color blindness and low vision.
As part of the Van Gogh Museum”™s mission to promote accessibility, EnChroma glasses for red-green color blindness will be available for guests who suffer from Colur Vision Deficiency (CVD) to borrow while touring the museum. The Van Gogh Museum is the first museum in Amsterdam and second in The Netherlands to support color blind guests via the EnChroma Color Accessibility Program ”“ over 80 museums participate in the program including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Centraal Museum Utrecht in The Netherlands, Gallerie d”™Italia in Italy, Chau Chak Wing Museum in Australia, and the Georgia O”™Keeffe Museum, Dallas Museum of Art and Museums of Contemporary Art, Chicago and Denver in the U.S.
“As Vincent wrote in 1885, ‘Color expresses something in itself. One can”™t do without it; one must make use of it.”™ We are very pleased that more visitors are able to experience the vibrant colours of the art of Van Gogh with the help of these glasses,” said Mirjam Eikelenboom, program manager for accessibility for the Van Gogh Museum.
“I”™m confident that Van Gogh would be pleased that the colors he so meticulously crafted are now more visible to millions of people previously unable to perceive them,” said Erik Ritchie, CEO of EnChroma. “We commend the Van Gogh Museum for working with us on an initiative that will inspire thousands of people with color blindness to experience Van Gogh”™s masterpieces in a new, more colorful way.”
