National Portrait Gallery Featuring Lucille Ball

Lucille Ball was known for her comedic timing and personality that didn't need color to help it pop. But now, because of a new exhibit displaying the technologically advanced work of one deceased photo journalist, visitors can get a better sense of the comedienne's orange-red hair.

The National Portrait Gallery exhibit, called In Vibrant Color, shows the work of Harry Warnecke who worked on color pictures of famous stars who were best known by their black-and-white versions of themselves.

Mr Warnecke worked for The New York Daily News in the 1930s and had the foresight to understand the future importance of investing in color technology.

'Warnecke designed and built a one-shot camera that yielded the red, blue and green separations needed for color reproduction,' the exhibition explains.

Once the paper understood that they would be more successful than their competitors financially if they had color photos and others did not, the newspaper yielded and built the photographer a color photo studio.

The 24 photos are displayed at The National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. now through until September 9th.