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History In Color: 58 Old Photos Before And After They Were Colorized By Sebastien De Oliveira (New Pics)
French artist Sébastien de Oliveira is best known for his meticulous colorization of historical black and white photographs, a process that blends archival research with a distinctly artistic sensibility.
Drawing on his background as a painter and photographer, de Oliveira approaches each image with careful attention to period-accurate details, studying clothing, architecture, materials, and environmental cues to ensure that every color choice feels grounded in its historical context. His goal is not strict realism, but emotional authenticity, using color as a way to reconnect modern viewers with moments that might otherwise feel distant or abstract.
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#1
Computer lesson in 1972.
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#2
A British sailor on board the HMS ALCANTARA uses a portable sewing machine to repair a signal flag during a voyage to Sierra Leone.
Photographed by Cecil Beaton in March 1942.
Douglas Gold 5 hours ago
My great-grandad served in Sierra Leone with the Royal Signals at this time.
#3
Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis are trying a Messerschmitt KR 200 in Paris, photographed in 1955.
#5
Marlene Dietrich and her chauffeur, Briggs, on a lunch break from filming Shanghai Express in 1931.
#9
Millworker’s house six miles north of Roxboro, Person County, North Carolina.
Photographed in July 1939 by Dorothea Lange.
#10
After The Shower, The Newspaper Seller Sweeps Up Around Her Kiosk.
Photographed in Paris on June 9Th 1955.
#13
Sarasota, Florida, trailer park. Students are coming from school in the afternoon.
Photographed by Marion Post Wolcott in January 1941.
#14
Farmer’s truck at state rice mill, Abbeville, Louisiana.
Photographed by Russell Lee in September 1938.
#18
Filling station, Reedsville, Preston County, West Virginia. Photographed by Walker Evans in June 1935.
#19
Circulation near Porte Saint Martin, Paris, in 1951.
I live nearly 200m from there.
#21
Portrait of Sir Winston Churchill,
30 December 1941, by Yousuf Karsh.
#23
Mount Auburn Street in Watertown, Massachusetts.
Photographed in the summer of 1977.
#25
Shopping and visiting on the main street of Pittsboro, North Carolina, Saturday afternoon, photographed by Dorothea Lange in July 1939.
#26
The smallest house in Paris.
With a facade less than 1,5 meters wide, the house is situated at 39 rue du Château d’eau in the 10th arrondissement. 200 meters from my home!
Photographed in 1926.
#27
Young workers at the Penomah Mills Inc, Taftville, Connecticut.
Photographed by Jack Delano in November 1940.
#28
Gordonton, North Carolina. Country store on dirt road. Sunday afternoon.Photographed by Dorothea Lange. July 1939.
#29
American troops participating in the Victory parade on the Champs Elysées in Paris for Bastille day 14th July 1919.
#30
Melvin Cash, a truck driver, is putting water in his radiator along U.S. Highway 29 in North Carolina en route to Charlotte.
Photographed by John Vachon in March 1943.
#33
Women workers during lunch hour, Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyards, Baltimore, Maryland. Photographed by Arthur Siegel in May 1943.
#35
November 1940. « Restaurant and beer hall in Summit City, California, boom town near Shasta Dam. » Photographed by Russell Lee.
#36
Showroom of the Pierson Company owned by Al Pierson.
November 1942, Lititz, Pennsylvania.
Photographed by Marjory Collins.
#37
Merry Christmas!
Mrs Roosvelt on a Christmas shopping tour.
Washington, D.C. December 1934.
Harris & Ewing Collection.
#38
Lititz, Pennsylvania, small town in wartime. Photographed by Marjory Collins in November 1942.
#39
Bob Daugherty, a driver for the Associated Transport Company, was on U.S. Highway Route 29 near Culpeper, Virginia. Photographed by John Vachon in March 1943.
#40
Kimo Theatre on Route 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Photographed by John Collier in February 1943.
#41
Conductor G.Reynolds, checking his waybills in a caboose of the Atchison, Topeka &Santa Fe Railroad between Argentine and Emporia, Kansas.
Photographed by Jack Delano in March 1943.
#42
August 1939. Medford, Oregon. Farm boy on the main drugstore corner in town, by Dorothea Lange.
From my book. « Back to America »
#47
Man sleeping on the subway, 1939.
#48
Daughter of John Yeuser of Mauch Chunk, a coal mining town in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.
Photographed by Jack Delano in August 1940.
#52
Service station run by a former resident of Oklahoma in Questa, New Mexico.
Photographed by Russell Lee in September 1939.
#55
Herald Square, 34th Street, and Broadway, New York.Photographed by Berenice Abbott in July 1936.
This colorisation is special for me, I can say it is the most difficult I ever had to do, 500 people to dress! yes I counted them because my daughter asked me how many they were! I did it three years ago for my first book, Back To America.
#56
Charles Farrar on a Harley Davidson, Washington D.C. Photographed by Robert H.McNeill in 1949.
#57
Street scene in the downtown business section.
Woodward Avenue at Farnsworth Street as seen from the Maccabees Building.
Detroit, Michigan, photographed by Arthur Siegel in July 1942.
#58
Filling station on a highway out of town, Charlotte, North Carolina.
Photographed by John Vachon in March 1943.
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What do you think ?
Apatheist 11 hours ago (edited)
I still don' think this technique has been mastered yet. I think the black and white ones give a more realistic and relatable impression of the scenes; the colourised ones look more like bad posters. It's a pure guess, but I wonder if it's the green from paint and the green from light that are confusing, leading to odd combinations with blue? No idea, just speculation, but something's not right.
Apatheist 11 hours ago (edited)
I still don' think this technique has been mastered yet. I think the black and white ones give a more realistic and relatable impression of the scenes; the colourised ones look more like bad posters. It's a pure guess, but I wonder if it's the green from paint and the green from light that are confusing, leading to odd combinations with blue? No idea, just speculation, but something's not right.
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