Georgia O’Keeffe Museum tackles visitors’ colour blindness

SANTA FE, N.M. – The vibrant colours and hues in Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings soon will be on full display for colour-blind visitors.

The Santa Fe museum announced Monday it’s teaming up with California-based EnChroma to expand the gallery experience through special glasses.

Starting May 3, visitors with red-green colour blindness can borrow glasses to see O’Keeffe’s work in the way that she intended.

One of the museum’s curators, Katrina Stacy, says O’Keeffe in her later years developed visual impairment from macular degeneration and turned her attention to sculpture.

Stacy says the project with EnChroma has ties to that part of the artist’s story.

EnChroma co-founder Andrew Schmeder says O’Keeffe juxtaposed colours from nature in ways that evoked emotion and seeing that relationship between colours has been challenging for people with colour blindness.