I thought the paint-by-number kit with pictures of a little boy and a little girl made perfect door markers for our young children’s bedrooms. My husband – the real artist of the family – scoffed at the idea of canned art. I shrugged off his scorn. I remembered the kit I received as a child in the 1960s. I sat down, peeled back the plastic seals on the oil paints and filled in the outlined areas. I enjoy the pleasure of working with colors – even though I lack the artistic gene.
His reaction and my absorption reflected the opposing fields of thought that accompanied the paint-by-number phenomena of the 1950s. Real artists looked down on the multitudes creating an oil painting on pre-printed canvases designating where to put each daub of paint.
The idea began in the late 1940s when Max S. Klein, owner of the Palmer Paint Co. of Detroit wanted to cash in on the increasing leisure time of post-war America. He asked Dan Robbins, a newly-married, young artist, to develop a way to market the company’s paint to adults.
“I remembered hearing that Leonardo used numbered background patterns for his students and apprentices, and I decided to try something like that,” Robbins said in an interview with the Associated Press on the 50th anniversary of his creation. That foot note in art history became the basis for the craft boom of the 1950s with 64-page catalogs of the plethora of kits available and a promise: “A beautiful painting the first time you try. Every man a Rembrandt.”
By 1953, Craft Master was producing 50,000 sets a day and selling a million a month – their competition added to that number – and undercut costs by using cardboard canvases instead of real canvas. The price difference forced Craft Master to abandon canvas for cardboard.
Celebrities got hooked on the kits. Secretaries of members of President Dwight Eisenhower’s cabinet completed kits which were displayed in the West Wing of the White House. Pictures of their signed work can be seen at americanhistory.si.edu/paint which details the history of the craze.
Real artists laughed derisively, but across the country folks proudly took their identically painted canvases to frame shops and hung them confidently in their living rooms after following instructions the company offered for artistically displaying the paintings. About 10 percent of those who tried the kits came back to buy bare canvas and tubes of oil to create their own works of art.
The sensation did not last. By 1957, Craft Master’s sales had fallen to 1.5 million, and Klein sold out. The pictures moved out of the living room, into the attic and eventually into nostalgia. Many reminisce the thrill of receiving a gift of a Craft Master kit, evenings spent filling the marked canvasses and the place of honor the framed, finished products held.
Robbins lived through the ignominy of having created acceptable art which the masses wanted to paint: Traditional landscapes, dancers and animals – and cute little kids in easy to finish kits. When he met his former art teacher on the street during the boon years, he was embarrassed to explain what he did for a living.
But, he lived to enjoy the last laugh. Paint-by-number pictures are now collectibles. E-bay sellers offer the vintage completed pictures in the original frames beginning at around $10. For those who still wish to try it, hobby shops and websites offer a variety of kits for children and adults.
And – the best revenge of all – Robbins became the paint-by-number expert. He wrote the book – “Whatever Happened to Paint-by-Numbers” and saw his completed art – painted by others’ skills – on display at the Smithsonian.