Color Blind Artists and Famous People: Four Documented Profiles

Fernando Dávila

Associated Press reported on December 26, 2025, that Dávila failed a drawing class at age eight in Colombia after painting donkeys red; he later worked only in black and white until about age 30. The report also describes the glasses he began using in the mid-1980s: one clear lens and one red-shaded lens, which he said let him distinguish more shades. Read the AP report (December 26, 2025).

Julio Reyes

In an August 21, 2018 interview, painter Julio Reyes said he has trouble distinguishing reds, greens, purples, and sometimes blues; he learned to mix colors through practice and trial and error. He had bought corrective glasses hoping to see colors he had not seen before, but said he hardly ever used them because he was accustomed to painting without them. Read the Fine Art Connoisseur interview (August 21, 2018).

Jon Parlangeli

Painter Jon Parlangeli recalled that in 1988, while he was at Western Michigan University, his color blindness led some faculty to push him away from painting. He said professor Don King then had him spend weeks reading books on color science and encouraged him to study how other colorists applied color; Parlangeli credited that help with becoming a colorist himself. Read The Creative Process interview (January 26, 2026).

Robert C. Richardson

In a June 2004 Nobel Prize interview, physicist Robert C. Richardson recounted that color blindness caused trouble in a chemistry quantitative-analysis course: he could not see when a pink indicator turned blue during titration. When he asked to use an electrode-based alternative, his professor refused and told him to choose another career; Richardson later shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics. Read the Nobel Prize interview (June 2004).

Van Gogh: Was He Colorblind?

It is not established that Vincent van Gogh was colorblind; the claim is a hypothesis, not a diagnosis. In an essay first posted October 12, 2011, and revised August 2, 2013, color-science researcher Kazunori Asada described how Van Gogh’s paintings looked under color-vision simulations and speculated that the artist’s color vision might have differed; Asada also wrote that this speculation could be wrong and that his simulation might not accurately reproduce color vision. Separately, the Van Gogh Museum’s gallery text (publication date not listed; checked September 30, 2026) says Van Gogh studied color theory and systematically applied it. That documents deliberate color practice, but does not settle his medical vision. Read Asada’s essay (October 12, 2011; revised August 2, 2013); read the Van Gogh Museum gallery text (date not listed; checked September 30, 2026).

Bob Ross Color Blind Painting: What the Story Says

No source here establishes that Bob Ross was colorblind; the “bob ross color blind painting” story is about a viewer. In the PBS transcript for “Shades of Grey,” Ross says a man told him he could not paint because he was colorblind, then says he chose a gray picture to show that anyone can paint. PBS dates this episode listing May 19, 2022. Read the PBS transcript and episode listing (May 19, 2022).

Is Prince William Color Blind?

The 2018 reports say yes, but the sources cited here do not verify the claim with a direct statement from William.

• NZ Optics (November 25, 2018) lists Prince William as color blind but gives no supporting quote or source for that claim.
• Optical Express (September 19, 2018) says he had “confessed” to being color blind but does not link to or identify the statement.

Famous Color Blind Females: What We Can Verify

Yes—Allure profiled creator Natasha Caudill on April 15, 2022, and reported that she was born with achromatopsia; the familiar male-female gap chiefly describes red-green deficiency, not every type.

• Allure (April 15, 2022) identifies Caudill’s condition as achromatopsia and reports her public work discussing color blindness.
• MedlinePlus Genetics (checked September 30, 2026) reports red-green color vision defects in about 1 in 12 males and 1 in 200 females among populations with Northern European ancestry. It explains that the common red-green forms are X-linked recessive: one affected X can cause the condition in a male, while both X chromosomes generally must carry the change in a female.
• National Eye Institute (updated January 30, 2025) says blue-yellow and complete color vision deficiencies involve other chromosomes and affect people of different sexes equally.