The Munsell Color Company was founded by Albert H. Munsell in 1917 with two other stockholders, Arthur Allen and Ray Greenleaf. It was located at Boston, Massachusetts. This company was manufactured to carry on business by publishing books, selling color supplies for schools such as crayons, water colors, paper colors and school supplies and to teach the principles of Munsell Color System. After the death of Albert H. Munsell, his son, Alexander Ector Orr Munsell, was convinced to take over the company and reorganized it, renamed as the Munsell Color Foundation. The Munsell Color Foundation moved to New York for educational purposes and established the Munsell Research Laboratory which was funded by the Munsell family. A few years later, the Munsell Color Foundation and the Laboratory moved to Baltimore, Maryland, to be close to the National Bureau of Standards and Johns Hopkins University. Alexander Munsell contributed his times attending to Johns Hopkins University and under the guidance from I. G. Priest, in order for Alexander continuing researching on his father's works. In 1983, the Foundation trustees had voted to close Munsell Color Foundation and donated to Rochester Institute of Technology, from which it created the Munsell Color Science Laboratory.
Short biography of Albert H. Munsell
Albert H. Munsell was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 6, 1858 and died on June 24, 1918. During his youth, he studied arts in Massachusetts Normal Art School and went abroad to École des Beaux-Arts in Paris to further studied arts. Impressionist arts movement was a big hit during his time. He won some awards for his work in anatomy, perspective and composition. His artworks were praised and exhibited in Boston, New York, Pittsburgh and Chicago. Most of his paintings were seascape artwork. When Albert Munsell went back to Massachusetts, he became a teacher of drawing and painting from antique figures, models, composition and anatomy.
During the early 1900s, Albert Munsell kept diaries on the development of Munsell color space. The reason he developed the Munsell Color System was to make the colors easy and convenient to teach children, since he believed that if children were properly taught, colors would be more meaningful and useful for them through life. He devoted his time to continue working on his Munsell color space.
In 1917 Albert H. Munsell founded the Munsell Color Company. He invested his time working on the Munsell Color System and published some books which were called A Color Notation (1905), Atlas of Munsell Color System (1915) and A Grammar of Color: Arrangements of Strathmore Papers in a Variety of Printed Color Combinations According to The Munsell Color System (1921). He was the first one to create the Munsell color system to separate three attributes – hue, value, and chroma – to be perceptually uniform. And the data of the Munsell color system was the most accurate measurement of human's visual responses to color.
Munsell Color Foundation
The Munsell Color Company was founded by Albert H. Munsell, who devoted his time to developing a color order system. The share owners of the stock besides Albert Munsell were Arthur Allen and Ray Greenleaf. Albert Munsell developed the color system based on human perception. And yet, his color system became popular and is still used worldwide today. The Munsell Color Company was formed to carry business by publishing books and charts, crayons, water colors, color spheres, paper colors and school supplies. After the death of Albert Munsell, his family supported the company in memorial of him. The company was later reorganized as the Munsell Color Foundation and moved to New York. The foundation was set up as the Munsell Color Laboratory to continue the scientific work of Munsell color system.