By Doug James

When Dan Robbins, artist, and Max Klein, master promoter and owner of Palmer Paint Company in Detroit, joined forces in 1949, no one could have anticipated what was to come. In the early 1950s, Klein wanted to get in on the newly emerging post war "do-it- yourself" market and directed Robbins to design a product that could be sold to the public who were now enjoying their new "leisure time".

Robbins came up with a picture-making system which enabled virtually anybody to reproduce an original painting. These were the first CraftMaster pictures, a name Robbins coined that today is more commonly known as "paint-by-numbers." They were sold in kit form, containing a printed and numbered canvas and paints bearing corresponding numbers. These were oil paints packaged in gelatin capsules.

After a series of starts and stops in the merchandising of these kits, a precipitating event occurred within a social environment ripe for an art revolution.

In 1952, an amateur painter in San Francisco entered an art competition with one of Robbins' very first images, "Abstract #1". It won third place. The national press had a field day. It was pointed out that art jurors could not distinguish between a paint-by-number painting and a real modernist painting. (The public was pretty well burned out on Modern Art and its bewildering images, which was virtually the only kind of art talked about in the media of the day.)

The widespread publicity given this debacle seemed to precipitate an absolutely colossal demand for these works. Palmer Paint Company was suddenly producing 12 million kits a year. Dozens of artists were hired as designers. More than 30 other companies came into being and cranking out millions more. The public could not get enough! The White House even hung paint-by-number paintings by J. Edgar Hoover and Nelson Rockefeller along with other artists' original works in a West Wing corridor.

By 1960, the craze had burned out. The surviving manufacturers continued to produce images for a public (now with a little different taste), though not in nearly the same quantity as before. In the decades to follow, paint-by-number paintings fell out of favor and were stored in attics, barns and basements all over the country. Most, it would seem, were simply thrown away, seen as valueless.

In the mid-1980s, a few collectors began to emerge. Galleries exhibited collections of PBN paintings, usually tongue-in-cheek, but the recycling had clearly begun.

Then in 2001, the Smithsonian Museum held an exhibition of PBN paintings, and a catalog was published. William L. Bird, Jr. was the show's curator, himself a paint-by- number collector.

Since the close of the Smithsonian exhibition, more and more collectors are coming into being, and prices are beginning to escalate for certain works. Knowing which images to collect is all important. Clearly, the first generation of CraftMaster pictures have surfaced as THE most collectible. The 36 original designs of Dan Robbins are moving toward the respectability of the fine art world.

The first generation pictures were printed on a canvas-like material that was actually made for window shades. These have held up extremely well. In many ways, they are more permanent than ordinary oil paintings, since they lack the fragile grounding materials.

Additionally, there are the works of Adam Grant, another CraftMaster artist and specialist in figure painting. "Love Ballet", an 18" x 24" ballet scene, and "Ballet Intermission", 12" x 16", an interlude of dancers, are two of his most popular first generation CraftMasters. Grant's works today can bring anywhere from a few hundred dollars to maybe as much as $800 or more for his super CraftMaster masterpiece, "The Red Shoes", which measures 27" x 36".

Picture Craft, a competing company of the day, made some very appealing pictures, also printed on canvas. The very popular image, "Oriental Cat", is one of those odd '50s juxtapositions of content, in this case miniature dancing Siamese figures, incense burning and a big white cat. Another very popular title was "Mediterranean Scene", a beautiful picture in very controlled colors. Both date to the early '50s.
While the early to mid-1950s paintings were done on canvas, which came rolled in the box with oil paints and brush, by 1956-58 virtually all companies had switched to canvas mounted on boards, still packaged with oil paints. This then, evolved over the next few years into simply cardboard and oil paints. By the late 1960s, acrylic paints began to make an appearance in many but not all manufacturers' kits. Acrylic paints are most commonly found in today's kits, but a few makers still offer oil pigments and canvas, just like in the old days.

Collecting today is often subject specific. There are collectors of birds, tropicals, dogs, cats, children, horses, flowers-you name it, it's collected by somebody. Some '60s vintage pictures can be bought for two or three dollars. Some can run into the hundreds for nudes and French scenes. The "Blue Herron" is from the '60s and is superbly colored. It will usually sell for $40-$60.

There is a resurgence of interest in the new kits, and there are hundreds of them available in craft stores and even on the shelves at Wal-mart.

As is the case with so many collectibles, the real value lies in the very first generation of works produced. Not to say there aren't some really great pictures that followed that are very worthy of collecting.

For more information about paint-by-numbers, visit www.atlanticbeachpress.com. It offers, among other things, identification and a pricing guide for early CraftMaster
pictures. 

"Twighlight Snow," 18" x 24"
oil on canvas. An excellent example of Robbins' earliest design work.

"Blue Herron" 20 x 16", oil on board, ca. 1960. Will typically sell for $35-$60.

"Oriental Cat", 16" x 12",
oil on canvas, Picture Craft Company, ca 1953. Will
usually sell for $40-$65.