Leopold Mannes

Leopold Damrosch Mannes (December 26, 1899 – August 11, 1964) was an American musician, who, together with Leopold Godowsky, Jr., created the first practical color transparency film, Kodachrome.

Mannes was born in New York City. He was a son of David Mannes and Clara (Damrosch) Mannes, and a brother of writer Marya Mannes. His parents founded the Mannes College of Music in New York. His maternal grandfather was conductor Leopold Damrosch, and his maternal uncles were conductors Walter Damrosch and Frank Damrosch. His father was Jewish; his mother was from a mostly Lutheran German family (and was of part Jewish descent through her own grandfather).

Mannes and Godowsky's experimentation with color photography began in 1917, after seeing the film Our Navy in Prizma Color, which was advertised as a color film. Because of the low quality the boys felt cheated and decided to do something about it. They designed a movie camera and projector, each with three lenses covered by orange-red, green and blue-violet filters. They took multiple black-and-white exposures and projected them back through the filters. They patented this system, but it was not a commercially viable process.

Mannes went on to study piano at Harvard and earned a Pulitzer Music Scholarship and a Guggenheim fellowship (1926) to study music composition in Italy. He later continued to play professional piano while studying physics at Harvard. Godowsky studied violin at UCLA and became a violinist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Although a continent apart, they continued to collaborate on ideas for improving color photography. By 1922, Godowsky had given up his orchestra jobs in California and moved back to New York City where he and Mannes worked as musicians. They experimented with color photography during their spare time.

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