The artist who created the first pictures painted by numbers dies

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) – Dan Robbins, an artist who created the first painting by number and helped transform the kits into an American sensation in the 1950s, is dead. He was 93 years old.

Robbins, whose works were rejected by some critics but later celebrated by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, died Monday in Sylvania, Ohio, said his son, Larry Robbins .

He was healthy until a series of falls in recent months, said his son.

Robbins was working as a packaging designer for the Palmer Paint Company in Detroit when he had the idea of ​​painting by numbers in the late 1940s. He said his inspiration came from Leonardo da Vinci. Vinci.

"I remembered hearing that Leonardo had used numbered background patterns for his students and apprentices, and I decided to try something like that Said Robbins in 2004.

He showed his first attempt – an abstract still life – to his boss, Max Klein, who immediately told Robbins that he hated her.

But Klein understood the potential of the overall concept and asked Robbins to come up with something that people would like to paint. The first versions were landscapes, then it was extended to horses, puppies and kittens.

"I did the first 30 or 35 topics myself, then I started to entrust them to other artists," said Robbins, who's mostly focused on landscapes .

While Craft Master paint kits were not initially adopted, sales quickly took off and reached 20 million in 1955. In a few years, the market was flooded, sales dropped and Klein sold the company. .

Together, Robbins helped create slices of Americana that are still collected and found framed in homes across the country. Palmer still sells at least two kits: one reminding of the September 11 attacks and the other representing the last dinner.

"We like to think that Dad was one of the most exposed artists in the world," Larry Robbins said. "He liked hearing ordinary people. He had a whole box of fan letters.

He noted that his father's achievements were still on display at the Detroit Historical Museum, "directly from Henry Ford," his son said.

Robbins, who spent much of his life in the Detroit area, was modest about his work and was not too worried about those who made fun of paintings.

Critics have come to regard numbering paint kits as a metaphor for a marketed cookie cutter and have stated that they were far more numerous than the works of art. Original art hanging in American homes, said William Lawrence Bird Jr., curator of the 2001 exhibition at the National Museum of American History.

Some museum members questioned the idea of ​​celebrating this craze for painting by numbers and its impact on art, at least until the crowd shows up, Bird said.

"He would say," I did not think about it, Leonardo did, "said Bird." He was amused that people collect them. "

Once his days were spent painting by number, Robbins continued to work on product development, including the design of Happy Meal toys for McDonald's, Bird said.

Robbins, who wrote a book titled "What Happened to Paint by Numbers," said at the inauguration of the Washington exhibition in April 2001 that his creation had survived despite critics .

"I never say that painting by number is an art," he said. "But this is the experience of art, which brings this experience to an individual who would not normally take a brush and do not dip it in paint. That's what it does.

Robbins leaves behind his wife, Estelle, his sons Michael and Larry, as well as several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

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This story has been updated to correct the name of the artist in Leonardo da Vinci and not in Leonardo da Vinci.