One Small Voice: In defense of Paint by Numbers (PBN)

by Lynn Mandaville

Uncluttering one’s life is not unlike an archaeological dig.

You go into it with a sense of what you are going to find (especially if you have been a selective hoarder with some modicum of organizational skill).

You know you will have to decide which artifacts are of value and which are simply the detritus that has blown in with the wind and been buried under the sands of time.

You know that what you find may bring the thrill of discovery, or that sense of futility when all you uncover is the debris of daily life instead of a rare relic.

And you know, that through the process, you will subconsciously form a sense of your life’s history in the material goods you’ve carried along through the years.

It is an undertaking that can be daunting, overwhelming and exhilarating, all at the same time.

Such was a day about two weeks ago when my son and I had a go at the garage, going through boxes of stuff not yet unpacked from our move almost three years ago.  Specifically, we were unpacking what can loosely be categorized as art.

Among the stuff were original paintings by Nick and me, along with photography, prints, and paintings accumulated over the years at the Ann Arbor Street Art Fairs, and various other articles of someone’s creativity.

We uncovered most of it with that “Oh, yeah!  That picture!” kind of recognition.

But the best surprise of that day was unearthing forgotten paint-by-numbers pictures done by my mother-in-law back in the 1950s.

These scenes of tropical jungles and exotic birds had adorned her bedroom walls in their New York and Florida homes for decades.  For some reason they had held enough appeal for me that I didn’t discard them when we cleared out their home.  I brought them back north with a few of the other relics of their lives and tucked them away.  And then I brought them to Arizona.

Unearthing these few paintings sparked memories of my own parents’ dabbling in this 1950s craze.  (Pop had done a painting of a clipper ship.  Ma had done some seascapes.)

You or your own folks may have partaken of this kitschy activity, or you may have stumbled across examples of this “art form” in the homes of friends or relatives.  I’d wager that most Americans have had some contact with paint-by-numbers during their lives.

Thus, I became obsessed with paint-by-numbers (PBN).  And as I too often do, I began my informal research into its origins.

Coincidentally, this past week, one of the pioneers in this American art form died.  Dan Robbins, a package designer for the Palmer Paint Company in Detroit, had been tasked by his boss, Max Klein, to come up with an idea to market their paints to adults.  Robbins recalled learning in high school that Leonardo Da Vinci had used a numbering system for the artists in his studios, so Robbins came up with this idea for kits of pre-stamped, numbered canvases, and paint pots of numbered oils that became the rage of hobbyists during the 50s.

Other innovators have also contributed to this much-maligned art form.  A commercial artist from Sault Ste. Marie, Royce Caron, devised such kits during World War II as a therapeutic activity for soldiers confined to hospitals while recuperating.

What I have learned is that, while American hobbyists went nuts for this pastime, critics reviled this cookie-cutter art for the masses.  Critics panned the idea that “every man can be a Rembrandt.”  PNB became synonymous with conformity and lack of originality.

Musing about these pieces got me to wondering if they had become collectible with the passage of time.  So I posted a query on a quirky web group that I joined a while back.  Called Weird Second Hand Finds That Just Have To Be Shared, this global Facebook group shares finds (from the ridiculous to the sublime) that they’ve run across in second-hand shops, thrift stores and Goodwills.  My question to the group was simply whether or not anyone else found old PBN as interesting as I did.

Come to find out that, yes, many people still love them, and they collect them and buy and sell them on eBay and Craigslist.  And depending on the subject matter, the skill of the painter, and whether or not the painter stuck to the formula or added his own flair, these paintings command prices from $10 into the hundreds of dollars!

In 2001, the Smithsonian Museum of American History mounted an exhibition of PBN called Paint By Number: Accounting for Taste in the 1950s.  In the same year, Bill Geist presented a piece for CBS Sunday Morning called By the Numbers, which can be seen on YouTube by searching “Bill Geist Paint By Numbers.”  (I recommend viewing this piece.  It’s Bill Geist at his best and most entertaining.)  Among the luminaries who have done PBN are none other than J. Edgar Hoover and Ethel Merman.

The Palmer Paint Company introduced PBN, and the Picture Craft Company manufactured kits in the millions from 1949 to 1955.  But if you’ve a mind to relive your childhood, or you want to experience the unparalleled thrill of painting a Salvador Dali masterpiece or the Mona Lisa, you can find kits online by googling paint-by-number kits. I found one such kit with ten canvases accompanying a book on PBN on Amazon (yeah, I bought it), and saw others listed for sale at Michael’s and Hobby Lobby.

Digging into the archaeology and anthropology of PBN has been a lovely diversion from my usual fare.  Completing my own PBN should prove to be equally satisfying.