Amateur Art for All: The History of Paint By Numbers

Each kit typically comes equipped with brushes, individually labelled, tiny tubs of paint, and a canvas etched with lines and small numbers that make up a colorless, pre-determined design. The painter is to then fill in the lines— like those of a coloring book— but with specified colors, either directly from the tubs or from mixing two to create a new hue.  

The original 1950s kits were developed by Max S. Klein, owner of Palmer Paint Company in Detroit, Michigan. Wanting to perfect the prototype, Klein sought after Dan Robbins, a commercial artist with a passion for all things paint. Before moving to Palmer Paint, Robbins worked for major automobile companies— like General Motors and Chevrolet— specifically in the art departments.

Though Robbins formally coined the paint by number invention, he credits Leonardo da Vinci for the inspiration. Da Vinci used a like-minded method when training his apprentices. He would issue them a canvas covered with numbered squares, on which he had drawn lines in varying directions. The apprentice would then fill in the angular shapes with different colors indicated by da Vinci, before proceeding to paint the remainder.

As Robbins worked on finalizing the design of the kits, he used blank images of the Mona Lisa, to which he would shade in small sections at a time, eventually building up to a completed piece. Robbins originally had proposed kits centered around abstract expressionism, but the market and interest were lacking. Instead, the company leaned into replicating— and also designing— landscape pieces, still lifes, and figurations. 

Once the product was released in 1951, over 12 million kits were sold to families across America. Some critics turned up their noses at the invention, believing it to be a mindless activity of copy and paste. Meanwhile, many users cherished the simplified art form, as it allowed them to create a masterpiece while only having to learn the techniques of mixing colors and applying paint to a canvas. 

Following Klein’s death in 1993, Palmer Paint Company archives were donated by his daughter to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History and have found their home in collection #544, the "Paint by Number Collection." 

In 2008, a Massachusetts private collector gathered over 6,000 paint by number works and created the Paint By Number Museum, the world's largest online archive of this art form. In 2011, the Museum of Modern Art also accepted four early paint by number models in the Department of Architecture and Design.

Today, paint by numbers can still be found on the shelves of any craft or department store. Custom photographs can even be uploaded for consumers to create their own, personalized paint by number kits, with the appropriate colors to match.