Godowsky studied violin at UCLA and became a soloist and first violinist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestras.
He performed jointly with his father, Leopold Godowsky, one of the great pianists of the early twentieth century, using a rare Cremonese violin by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, the 1734 "Prince Doria".
[2] By 1922, Godowsky had given up his orchestral jobs in California and moved back to New York City where he and Mannes worked as musicians.
While on his way to perform in Europe in late 1922, Mannes made the chance acquaintance of a senior partner in the investment firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Co. and described their progress with color photography.
Some months later the firm sent one of their junior associates, Lewis L. Strauss to the Mannes apartment to view the color process.
By 1935, Godowsky and Mannes and the Kodak research staff had developed a marketable subtractive color film for home movies.
[5] The Photographic Resource Center at Boston University has a biennial award for Color Photography named in honor of Leopold Godowsky Jr.