paint by number, psaw collection

Paint by number. The craze of the 1950's - paint by number swept the nation in the era of Eisenhower, Levittown, post war prosperity, and a post war concept of leisure time - which probably had more to do with women being squeezed out of the workforce and back into the home than with any real decrease in the need for labor. It doesn't seem surprising that paint by number was marketed to women, although plenty of men did enjoy making the paintings.

paint by number setter, psaw collection

Is Paint By Number art now? Was it art then? Do time, distance and a changing art market alter our perceptions and judgements?

paint by number horses, psaw collection

At pine street art works we love them, or we wouldn't be showing them. We are fascinated by their subversive allure - the tension created between the pleasure of viewing and the original - and ongoing - horrified responses by the gate keepers of high culture.

Although now PBN has been the subject of a show at the Smithsonian, and of many academic and popular essays, and regularly show up in design magazines and blogs, there is still the vacillating response - are we allowed the pleasure we get from looking at (or making) these paintings?

pbn A Boy With A Rabbit -Sir Henry Raeburn. Collection psaw

Most of the paint by number sets of the fifties and early sixties depicted nostolgic scenes: historic and pastoral landscapes, christian religious images, adorable or noble animals, sentimental glimpes of far distant cultures as well as copies from the canon of romanticized European figurative art. Critics at the time were disgusted with the mechanized mass produced nostalgia.

SOLD

But now, with our vantage point from the 21st century, these paintings have aquired the patina of age and distance. Have they aquired the "aura" that Walter Benjamin wrote about? Or are we nostalgic for the more innocent nostalgia of the 50's? Are we caught up in second order - or even third order -nostalgia?

Original box for paint by number tole tray, psaw collection

The August Paint By Number show doesn't answer these questions but provides some gorgeous evidence for future theories.

unpainted tole tray, psaw collection

Unpainted tole tray.

collection psaw

No special skill or talent needed! Anyone can paint Tole Craft! It's easy and lots of fun.

From the brochure. Tole Craft Products, Inc. Baltimore. Not dated.

collection psaw

partially used Craft Tint kit

bait, paint by number, collection psaw

Bait House

PBN Collie, collection psaw

Ballerina, paint by number, collection psaw

craft master gallery guide

Craft Master Gallery Guide . Not dated. Collection psaw.

paint by number collection psaw

Paris After The Rain.

SOLD. Available as Flashbag through Pine Street Art Works.

collection psaw

Paris, street artist.

Paint by Number Maltese.

1958 Mad Magazine, special double cover (i.e. a mistake, they stapled two covers onto the magazine.)

Mona Lisa
SOLD