Paint by number or painting by numbers kits are self-contained painting sets, designed to facilitate painting a pre-designed image. They generally include

brushes A brush is a common tool with bristles, wire or other filaments. It generally consists of a handle or block to which filaments are affixed in either a parallel or perpendicular orientation, depending on the way the brush is to be gripped during u ...

, tubs of paint with numbered labels, and a

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable Plain weave, plain-woven Cloth, fabric used for making sails, tents, Tent#Marquees and larger tents, marquees, backpacks, Shelter (building), shelters, as a Support (art), support for oil painting and for other ite ...

printed with borders and numbers. The user selects the color corresponding to one of the numbers then uses it to fill in a delineated section of the canvas, in a manner similar to a

coloring book A coloring book (British English: colouring-in book, colouring book, or colouring page) is a type of book containing line art to which people are intended to add color using crayons, colored pencils, marker pens, paint or other artistic media. ...

. The kits were invented, developed and marketed in 1950 by Max S. Klein, an engineer and owner of the Palmer Paint Company in Detroit, Michigan, United States, and Dan Robbins, a commercial artist. When Palmer Paint introduced crayons to consumers, they also posted images online for a "Crayon by Number" version. PaintByNumbers

History

The first patent for the paint-by-number technique was filed in 1923. Paint by Number in its popular form was created by the Palmer Show Card Paint Company. The owner of the company approached employee Dan Robbins with the idea for the project. After several iterations of the product, the company in 1951 introduced the Craft Master brand, which went on to sell over 12 million kits. This public response induced other companies to produce their own versions of painting by number. The Craft Master paint kit box tops proclaimed, "A BEAUTIFUL OIL PAINTING THE FIRST TIME YOU TRY." First Image from Mariner 4 - GPN-2003-00060

First Image from Mariner 4 - GPN-2003-00060

Following the death of Max Klein in 1993, his daughter Jacquelyn Schiffman donated the Palmer Paint Co. archives to the

Smithsonian Museum of American History The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center is a historical museum in Washington, D.C. It collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and m ...

. The archival materials have been placed in the museum's Archives Center where they have been designated collection #544, the "Paint by Number Collection". In 1992,

Michael O'Donoghue Michael O'Donoghue (January 5, 1940 – November 8, 1994) was an American writer, actor, editor and comedian. He was known for his dark and destructive style of comedy and humor, and was a major contributor to ''National Lampoon'' maga ...

and Trey Speegle organized and mounted a show of O'Donoghue's paint-by-number collection in New York City at the Bridgewater/Lustberg Gallery. After O'Donoghue's death in 1994, the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

National Museum of American History The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center is a historical museum in Washington, D.C. It collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and m ...

exhibited many key pieces from O'Donoghue's collection, now owned by Speegle, along with works from other collectors in 2001. In 2008, a private collector in Massachusetts assembled over 6,000 paint-by-number works dating back to the 1950s from eBay and other American collectors to create the Paint By Number Museum, the world's largest online archive of paint-by-number works. In 2011, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in New York accepted four early designs of paint by number by Max Klein for its Department of Architecture and Design, donated by Jacquelyn Schiffman. In May 2011, Dan Robbins and Palmer Paint Products, Inc., together developed and brought to market a new 60th-anniversary paint-by-number set. This collectors set was created in memory of the survivors and those who had lost their lives on

September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, and depicts the

Twin Towers Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...

standing in spirit across the

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

skyline. On April 1, 2019, Dan Robbins died in Sylvania, Ohio, at the age of 93.

History

See also

References

Further reading