All you Rembrandt wanna-be’s, remember these? Paint by Number? They date back to the days of Da Vinci when he used the technique to train artists. A guy by the name of Dan Robbins happened on that fact back in 1950 and thought all kinds of people would want to be able to paint like the “masters”. Well, not so much as it turned out at first. He approached the SS Kresge (now K-Mart) about the concept. They went for it, reluctantly – and for good reason. The two choices, “The Fisherman” and “The Bullfighter” got off to a rough start when it was discovered that the paints got mixed up. Customers complained when the bull turned out green. Not being the type to give up, in March of 1951, he approached Macy’s. The deal this time was that he would include a demonstration and Macy’s could return any unsold kits free of charge so they had nothing to lose financially. Unknown to Macy’s Robbins hired a couple buddies to pass out money, $500, to friends and relatives to attend and “buy” the kits at $2.50 each, with the intention to create a kind of feeding frenzy. It worked and the hobby took off. Most of the early ones were oil paints, but you can still get them today in oil, pencil, ink, etc. The big problem with them is that they tend to look more like marquetry (wood puzzles) than works of art. Religious stuff was always popular along with sailing ships.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 02:56:44 +0000
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