First Annual Vintage Paint by Number Show!!!

 

Don your favorite vintage outfit and get ready to stroll down memory lane! It’s time for FOUND in Ithaca and The Gallery at FOUND’s first annual Vintage Paint by Number Show to benefit the Tompkins County SPCA.

The show opens on Wednesday, July 20th. An opening reception will take place on Thursday, July 21st from 5-7 pm AND the SPCA will have kittens onsite for adoption during the reception. The show will be on display in the Gallery through August 14th. We invite you to come enjoy the show, enjoy tasty treats and support the efforts of your local SPCA!  20% of the profits from the sale of paintings in the show will be given to the Tompkins County SPCA. In addition a gift certificate and a recently issued Commemorative Paint by Number kit of the Twin Towers and the NYC skyline will be raffled with all proceeds going to the SPCA.

Paint by number (PBN) kits were invented by Max S. Klein (owner of the Palmer Paint Company) and Dan Robbins (a commercial artist) and were sold under the CRAFT MASTER brand which promised “A beautiful oil painting the first time you try”. Modeled after a technique used by Leonardo da Vinci to teach painting, these kits caught on like wild fire and in 1951 over 12 millions were sold! When Max died in 1993, his daughter, Jacquelyn Schiffman, donated the company’s archives to the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

The world’s largest collection of vintage PBN’s belongs to private collector in Massachusetts who has assembled over 6,000 paintings. They form the basis for the Paint By Number Museum, the world’s largest online archive of vintage paint by number works. William L. Bird curator at the Smithsonian and author of Paint by Number: The How-to Craze that Swept the Nation says that PBN is where “art meets kitsch and popular and high cultures collide in a collage of home economics, leisure time fun, and art education”.

Paint by Number kits have been a part of our popular culture since 1950. Whether you remember painting them yourself or enjoying them on the walls of grandma and grandpa’s house it’s time to celebrate this classic kitschy art form!