Exploring how color and color perception have been codified, manipulated, and employed to dazzling effects by artists and designers from antiquity to present day, this exhibition brings together 190 objects—including texts on color theory, psychedelic posters, Pantone decks, and vivid, 3D-printed sculptures—that illuminate the endless visual possibilities of a polychromatic palette.

Sample Plate (ca. 1920s). Photo: Matt Flynn © Smithsonian Institution.