The earliest color films were made around 1895, when new, synthetically produced dyes transformed the nature of color in mediums such as postcards, magic lantern slides, and fabrics. For moviegoers of the period, color added to films shot in black and white was an attractive “special effect.” The coloring task could involve as many as two hundred women engaged in the time-consuming and labor-intensive process of applying dyes with a brush directly onto each frame of a release print—the copy of a film distributed to theaters for screenings.
Dance films were a genre favored by early color filmmakers. This selection of hand and stencil-colored films show their subjects moving rapidly against black backgrounds, which helped mask coloring errors.
2023
Explore more
Living Forms
Gallery 516As steam and steel reshaped the modern world, another, quieter revolution took place. While many artists and designers celebrated the machine’s precision, others turned to the vocabulary of nature: the unfolding leaf, the spiral shell, the architecture of growth itself.
Learn more →
From MoMA Design Store
Licensing
Artwork or archival images
If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).
Audio and film clips
MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.
Text from a publication or the archives
If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].
Feedback
This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.