Chasing Rainbows: How We Talk About Color

Color is one of the most foundational experiences we have as humans—yet our understanding about what color is, how we experience it, and how to talk about it is a bit squishy. Is aqua blue or green (or neither)? Does that change when you put aqua next to a blue or green? And if it does change, does that mean it’s still aqua? Science can provide answers—but what happens when the answers science gives us contradict our own experiences? Even artists who work with color all the time sometimes struggle with how to order, describe, and work with color. Is there a common language we can all use?
Join lexicographer and author Kory Stamper as she guides you through a kaleidoscopic journey through modern color science, color psychology, color naming and descriptions, and our perceptions about color using artworks in the MAG collection.
Kory Stamper is an author and lexicographer who has spent near 30 years thinking (too deeply) about how to define the words that define us. In her 20 years as an editor at Merriam-Webster, she defined everything from “blue plate special” to “god” and answered dictionary user questions on everything from what color “nude” really is to why it’s “toothpaste” and not “teethpaste.” She has written about her time as a dictionary writer in Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries (2017, Pantheon). Her moderate obsession with color began during her time at Merriam-Webster, and led to her second nonfiction book, True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color—from Azure to Zinc Pink (2026, Knopf).
Lecture will be followed by a book signing in the Vanden Brul Pavilion until 8:30 pm.