Color Decoded: Stories That Span The Spectrum

Milton's Mary's Turn also features Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas paintings hanging on the wall. Click here for a closer look. Courtesy of Peter Milton hide caption

NBC employees change Nebraska to red in the electoral map of the United States in 2008. All the TV news operations, including NBC News, settled on red for Republicans and blue for Democrats in 2000. Mary Altaffer/AP hide caption

For decades, Kodak's Shirley cards, like this one, featured only white models. Kodak hide caption

Phil Stanton (from left), Chris Wink and Matt Goldman are the founders of the theatrical performance troupe Blue Man Group. Jemal Countess/Getty Images hide caption

Surprise! Not one of these things contains a single speck of blue pigment. Evan Leeson/Bob Peterson/lowjumpingfrog/Look Into My Eyes/Flickr hide caption

This is a re-creation of a color plate from Interaction of Color, by Josef Albers. The two X's are are exactly the same — it's the different backgrounds that make them look like very different colors. Source: Josef Albers Interaction of Color hide caption

An employee at a frozen foods company in eastern Germany checks carrots for quality. Michael Urban/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

Photographer JeongMee Yoon felt her daughter's life was being overtaken by pink. She illustrated that in her 2006 portrait Seo Woo and Her Pink Things. JeongMee Yoon/Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Jenkins Johnson Gallery hide caption

A painter touches up one of the bridge's cables. When it came time to decide the paint color for the bridge, consulting architect Irving Morrow wanted a warm hue to contrast with the cool grays, blues and greens of San Francisco Bay. Courtesy of goldengatebridge.org hide caption

Maggy Rozycki Hiltner's Hothouse Flowers, made of found fabrics, is one of many works on display in the Textile Museum's Green: The Color and the Cause exhibit in Washington, D.C. Click here to see the full textile. Virginia Spragg hide caption