Click here to see more images of the WMA’s artwork as they appear to the red-green color blind.

“One of WMA’s strategic goals is to make our collection more accessible to the public, and we’re one step closer to that with this initiative. We’re committed to reducing barriers to access across all of our work at the museum, and are excited to offer members of the public who experience color blindness a more colorful experience,” said Dana-Marie Lemmer, executive director at Wiregrass Museum of Art.

“We are delighted that the Wiregrass Museum of Art is supporting accessibility and

inclusion for those with color vision deficiencies and joining over 100 other museums that do so worldwide,” said Erik Ritchie, CEO of EnChroma. “The more colorful experience afforded by EnChroma glasses will surely make visits to WMA more meaningful and memorable for color blind guests.”

WMA is the third museum in the state of Alabama to improve accessibility for those with Color Vision Deficiency (CVD). The other participating museums in Alabama are the Birmingham Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. Recently, three local red-green color blind people became the first to experience the glasses at the museum.

EnChroma is the lead advocate for “color accessibility,” helping over 400 schools, universities, state and national parks, libraries, museums, and other organizations purchase and loan EnChroma glasses to color-blind students and guests. EnChroma donates a pair of glasses for each pair an organization buys to lend to the public or students. The program is also open to employers.

Through partnerships with vendors, scenic viewers adapted for the color blind with EnChroma lenses are also available. EnChroma glasses are engineered with special optical filters that help the red-green color blind see an expanded range of colors more vibrantly, clearly, and distinctly to make schoolwork that involves color, art, nature, and other experiences more ‘color accessible.’

A study by the University of California, Davis, and France’s INSERM Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute, demonstrated the effectiveness of the glasses. The glasses do not cure color blindness and results and reaction times vary. They work for approximately 80% of red-green color-blind people who have all three of the color cones in their retina functioning properly.

Media: Product shots, images and interactive GIFs illustrating the challenges for those with Color Vision Deficiencies can be downloaded here. More media materials are available here.

About EnChroma

Based in Berkeley, Calif., EnChroma produces leading-edge eyewear for red-green

color blindness and low vision, and other solutions for color vision, sold online and

through Authorized Retailers worldwide. Invented in 2010, EnChroma’s patented

eyewear combines the latest in color perception, neuroscience and lens innovation to

improve the lives of people with red-green color vision deficiency around the world.

EnChroma received an SBIR grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

It earned the 2016 Tibbetts Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration in

recognition of the firm’s innovative impact on the human experience through technology,

and the 2020 Innovation Award in Life Sciences from the Bay Area’s East Bay

Economic Development Alliance.