Dan Robbins

Dan Robbins (born May 26, 1925 in Detroit , Michigan , † April 1, 2019 in Sylvania , Ohio ) was an American packaging designer at the company " Palmer Paint Company ", who developed and invented "paint by numbers" ( English Paint by numbers ) became known in the 1950s after World War II.

History / company history

Dan Robbins was born on May 26, 1925, the son of car salesman and vaudeville singer Lou Robbins and house mother Halene (Levine) Robbins.

After graduating from Cass Technical High School in Detroit in 1943, he served in the US Army as a map developer ( Army Corps of Engineers (maps division)) during World War II . Upon his return, Robbins married Estelle Shapiro in 1946 and began working as a freelance artist. He used drawing methods that he learned at Cass Tech in high school. When he joined the Palmer Paint Company, which creates washable posters for children, he designed packaging and created coloring books for children that post World War II people can do in their free time. As a result of further commercial profit, the company boss Mr. Klein demands that he develop coloring books for young people as well as adults. He remembers an idea from Leonardo da Vinci, who numbered objects in the background and had his interns paint them with different colors. When he presented the implementation to Mr. Klein in 1949, he was appalled by the tangle of lines (cubic-leaning by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque), but the basic idea was to number fields and paint them with a different color based on the number Interested. Accordingly, Robbins created motifs that Mr. Klein liked, such as “The Fishermen”.

Robbins first sold his coloring pages in 1951 at the Macy's department store in New York City for $ 2.45. From 1952 onwards, the Palmer Paint Company sold coloring pictures under the name “Craft Masters”. Robbinson draws a total of 36 illustrations without tools. Since the process with brushes, canvases and color layers was complex, the company hired other illustrators and bleachers to produce the templates in all possible color combinations. Robbins was promoted to chairman of the Palmer Paint Company and the Craft Master Company (in Toledo). In addition, the process of pouring paint into gelatin-containing capsules, previously manually poured by Sara and Estelle Robinson, has been mechanized at Eli Lilly and Company .

In total, Palmer Paint Company sold 12 million paint by number kits in 1955 under the Craft Master brand (with templates from Dan Robbins). But since this invention was not patented by the Palmer Paint Company, other manufactories (with 6 million sales Equipments) market with their own developed templates. At the end of the 1955s, the Dan Robbins family moved to Toledo as Carft Masters was taken over by the Donofrio family in 1956.

This is mainly due to the proliferation of the television in the mid-1950s. As a result, the earnings figures fell. But the Palmer Paint Company will remain financially stable well into the 21st century. Nowadays, Dan Robbins templates are mostly used for adults to rest and relax.

Towards the end of his life, Robbins devoted himself to his self-founded Chicago-area advertising agency in Illinois and became an expert on the “painting by numbers” genre. He researched and archived “painting by numbers” pictures. He also opened a cake decoration factory that Robbins ran in Chicago until 1973 and designed Happy Meal figures for McDonald’s .

Dan Robbins died on April 1, 2019 at the hospital in Sylvania, Ohio, from complications of pneumonia .

He leaves behind a wife, two sons, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Famous pictures

Famous images by Dan Robbins, such as “Abstract No. 1 ”was found in the Eisenhower White House. Or in the cover of Mad Magazine 1958, on which a half-painted head of a boy can be seen. One of his major works Gone But Not Forgotten , posted through a collaboration between Palmer Paint Products and the non-profit Voice organization , in commemoration of the September 11th terrorist attack . It shows the New York City skyline with the transparent twin towers emerging from the picture.

In addition to buildings and abstract paintings, Robbins mainly created landscapes, such as the native country house of Shakespeare's and Ann Hathaway's.

One of Dan Robbins' most expensive works is valued at $ 2,850 and shows the self-portrait of Queen Elizabeth.

Overall, Robbins works show a wide range of models: from landscapes, famous photos, bullfights and ballet dancers to Queen Elisabeth's cats.

criticism

The question that has been asked again and again since the 1950s is whether “painting by numbers” is art at all, since, in the opinion of critics, this is a “mechanical, determined and thoughtless repainted” process that “evokes ordered feelings”. In addition, this is only "copies of existing art (" cookie-cutter culture ") that is used for commercial purposes".

On the other hand, at the opening of the exhibition “Paint by Number: Accounting for Taste in the 1950s” (2001) at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, museum director William Lawrence Bird advocated that “through practice, art can be understood”. But he left it open whether “painting by numbers” is art.

In contrast to the hailing criticism, Dan Robbins was unimpressed. He wrote about this in his book (published in 1998) "Whatever Happened to Paint-By-Numbers?":

“I've never made the claim that painting by numbers is art. […] But it is an experience of art and that this experience is brought to every individual who normally does not take a brush, does not dip it in paint. That's what it does "

Today Dan Robbins is known (especially in America) as one of the best artists in the world, who through his concept of “painting by numbers” has raised the question of what art is and what can be called art.

media

After his death, the media and newspapers recognized Dan Robbins life's work.

The New York Times wrote:

“Da Robbins was not Leonardo da Vinci. But he copies one of the master techniques, allowing children with growing faith to believe that they can draw “The Last Supper”. [...] With the grinding by numbers equipment, young children from the baby boom in the 1950s pursued the same mechanisms as those used by Renaissance artists, who took the content of the outlines of everything imaginable, from seascapes and the Matterhorn to Queen Elisabeth II's kittens , have painted. The process of opening art to the masses - another cut in the continuum of the limitless democratic American ethos that promises “a chicken in every pot” and “every man a king”. As well as: […] “Every man a Rembrandt”. For a time it can be said that Dan Robbins, who is an essential illustrator, is the most exhibited artist in the world. His original freehand drawings serve as the template for the number-drawing equipment that is supposed to cover the empty walls to decorate suburban post-war living rooms. "

He was also hired by Peggy Grand (illustrator hired by Robbins) as who:

"Who changed and shaped the monumental scale for art."

Skip Davis (hired illustrator after 1973 and close friend of Dan Robbins) said:

"I can't think of any other product that the [American] nation has so carried away"

Exhibitions

In honor of Dan Robbins, the exhibition: Paint By Number: Accounting for Taste in the 1950s opened at Smithsonian's National Museum of American April 6, 2001 - January 7, 2002, including 800 pictures by Dan Robbins and other famous illustrators

In addition, a permanent exhibition of the “Paint By Number” templates and images was opened in the Detroit Historical Museum in 2013.

In addition to many exhibitions, Dan Robbins' ideas were inspired by many artists, such as the pop artist Andy Warhol , who created the painting series "Do It Yourself" in 1962.

Web links

• Picture gallery by Dan Robbins: paintbynumbermuseum.com
• Biography Dan Robbins

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Katharine Q. Seelye: Dan Robbins, Who Made Painting as Easy as 1-2-3 (and 4-5-6), Dies at 93 . In: The New York Times . April 5, 2019 ( nytimes.com [accessed May 22, 2019]).
2. ↑ ^{a b c} By The Colors. In: Hacking Finance. Retrieved May 22, 2019 . 
3. ^ Paint by Numbers Creator Dan Robbins. March 20, 2012, Retrieved May 24, 2019 (American English). 
4. ^ Dan Robbins Biography - Paint By Number Museum. Retrieved May 24, 2019 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} 20 North Gallery: Remembering Dan Robbins: 1925 - 2019. In: 20 North Gallery. April 5, 2019, accessed May 24, 2019 . 
6. ↑ ^{a b} Paint-by-numbers inventor dies at 93 . April 5, 2019 ( bbc.com [accessed May 24, 2019]).
7. ↑ Toledo-area artist who created paint-by-numbers pictures dies. Retrieved May 24, 2019 . 
8. ↑ ^{a b} “Painting by Numbers” inventor Dan Robbins died in the USA. In: The Standard. Retrieved on May 24, 2019 (Austrian German). 
9. ^ Mad Magazine Cover 1958 - Paint By Number Museum. Retrieved May 20, 2019 . 
10. ^ Paint By Numbers. Retrieved May 24, 2019 . 
11. ^ Dan Robbins, artist behind paint-by-numbers phenomenon dies at 93 . In: Associated Press (ed.): The Guardian . April 5, 2019 ( theguardian.com [accessed May 24, 2019]).
12. ^ Paint by Numbers Creator Dan Robbins. March 20, 2012, Retrieved May 22, 2019 (American English).