A Transient Historical past of Acrylic Paint - Jackson's Artwork Weblog

Acrylic Paint is a very a contemporary invention, created as a by-product of fast technical development, this quick-drying and versatile medium displays the fast-pace of latest life. It got here to prominence in the course of the twentieth century, changing into a big medium whose use is deeply interconnected with necessary fashionable artwork actions equivalent to Summary Expressionism and Pop Artwork. On this article, I’ll focus on the technical origins of acrylic, and the way its invention impacted artwork historical past by spurring on a brand new emphasis for materiality in portray.

A Fashionable Medium: A Transient Historical past of Acrylic Paint

What’s Acrylic Paint?

In its most straightforward type, acrylic paint is product of three primary parts: pigment, polymer binder and water. Like all artwork supplies, paint formulations range as a result of every producer or artist has their very own methodology of manufacturing. Mannequin acrylic paint is usually mentioned to comprise round 41% water, 32% polymer binder, and 6.5% pigments and different components. In the end, nonetheless, each artist has their very own private preferences, and there’s no single “excellent” ratio – it at all times is determined by which qualities of the paint finest fit your artwork apply.

The primary distinction between oil and acrylic paint lies within the binder utilized in every. In oil paint, the binder and car is oil – whether or not that’s linseed, walnut, poppyseed, or safflower oil – which is mixed with pigments to create oil paint. Alternatively, acrylic paint makes use of a polymer binder that requires water as its car. When the water and binder are mixed, they type a polymer emulsion, which is then combined with pigment to supply acrylic paint.

As a result of acrylic paint is water-based, it dries a lot sooner than oil paint. The water within the paint evaporates from the floor because it dries, whereas oil paint ‘dries’ by means of oxidation – a chemical response during which the oil binds with oxygen within the air – progressively curing the paint over time. Acrylic paint typically seems darker as soon as dry, because the polymer emulsion adjustments from opaque when moist, to clear when dry, darkening the worth of color.

The Invention of Acrylic Paint

The primary steps in the direction of the creation of acrylic paint started in 1934 when German chemists Otto Röhm and Otto Haas (Rohm and Haas Firm) created acrylic resin. For the reason that 1900s, Otto Röhm had been researching acrylic polymers to create artificial supplies for industrial coatings, adhesives, and clear plastics. The intention was that these extra dependable supplies might change the much less steady pure resins which might be inconsistent in color, water-sensitive, and liable to degradation. This analysis finally led to the invention of acrylic resin and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) – commercially referred to as Plexiglas – with acrylic paint rising in a while as an unintended results of these industrial advances.

Otto Röhm

In 1947, acrylic resin was efficiently used to create the primary usable acrylic paint. Sam Golden, co-founder of Golden Artist Colours, started his profession as a paint maker in 1936 in Manhattan, the place he joined his uncle Leonard Bocour as a associate of Bocour Artist Colours. Throughout his tenure at Bocour, Sam was credited with the creation of the primary artist acrylic paint, below the model identify ‘Magna’ – marketed as “the primary new portray medium in 500 years”. You possibly can learn extra concerning the historical past of the Golden model in our weblog article: The Story of Golden Heavy Physique Acrylic Paint

Leonard Bocour, in an commercial for Magna paint.

Magna paints have been completely different to fashionable acrylic paints as they have been solvent-based, and might be diluted with turpentine or different mineral spirits. You possibly can virtually see them because the bridge between oil and acrylic paint. They have been utilized by many artists, together with Color-field painter Morris Louis, Summary expressionist Jackson Pollock, and American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. Their fashionable end was essential to Lichtenstein’s iconic physique of labor. He praised them – describing them as ‘shiny’ and ‘plastic-like’ – as they produced a easy, matte end, and said “I might paint with one thing else, however I’d need to be taught to color another time.”

In 1955, color chemist Henry Levison created the primary water-based acrylic gesso, referred to as ‘Liquitex’. This growth additionally led him to vary the identify of his firm ‘Everlasting Pigments’, to the favored paint firm we all know right now as ‘Liquitex’. Throughout this era, acrylic paint began to be referred to as the “new medium for skilled artists”.

The Affect of Acrylic Paint on Artwork Historical past

Summary Expressionism – Forties

Shortly after the Second World Conflict, and barely earlier than the acrylic as we all know it right now was invented – the Summary Expressionist motion emerged in New York.

Summary Expressionism might be divided into two teams. The primary was ‘Motion Portray’, pioneered by artists equivalent to Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Presently, most Summary Expressionists have been utilizing oils and enamel, and Jackson Pollock used industrial home paints. However beginning with de Kooning, over time they started to include acrylics into their items because of their quick drying properties.

“At a sure second the canvas began appearing to at least one American painter after one other as an area during which to behave – quite than as an area during which to breed, redesign, analyse or ‘specific’ an object, precise or imagined. What was to go on the canvas was not an image however an occasion.”

– Harold Rosenberg, ‘The American Motion Painters’, 1952, reprinted in The Custom of the New, 1959’

The second group inside Summary Expressionist motion is Color discipline portray, which was pioneered by Clyfford Nonetheless, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. These work normally consisted of flat planes of color – typically described as ‘meditative areas’. Like de Kooning, Rothko was identified to experiment with acrylic paints inside his artworks, however they have been extra of an addition to his apply, quite than a serious ingredient.

Slowly, we will see how this motion began to pave the best way for acrylic painters, with main artists incorporating them into their artworks.

In 1962-63, notable Color discipline painter, Helen Frankenthaler, helped popularise acrylics amongst post-war artists, as she switched to utilizing them in her soak-stain approach. Frankenthaler’s use of those acrylics impacted the method, particularly by way of conservation, because the paint wouldn’t deteriorate the canvas over time like solvent-based paints equivalent to Magna and oil paints do. Our weblog article Acrylic Soak-Stain Portray: Preparation and Strategies takes a better take a look at this method.

Pop Artwork – Nineteen Fifties

Although Pop Artwork ran alongside Summary Expression for over a decade, it reached its peak barely later, within the Nineteen Sixties. Within the USA significantly, these actions additionally occurred alongside an unlimited post-war growth in consumerism. The mass manufacturing of products and the fast modernisation of American existence went hand in hand with the invention and recognition of acrylic paints.

Pop Artwork was a direct response to this, and aimed to problem the classical traditions of the artwork world, by referencing well-liked tradition by way of on a regular basis objects, promoting, and shopper items. The invention of acrylic paint additionally meant that artists might shortly make flat work that dried inside a matter of minutes. This allowed them to quickly layer photographs and compositions, serving to form the daring and exaggerated power of the inventive motion.

While the origins and symbolism used are completely different in the USA in comparison with the UK, the imagery and use of acrylic paint was comparable. British artist David Hockney was integral to the mainstream use of acrylic paints as he was one of many first artists to make in depth use of it in his massive canvases.

He moved from England to California within the mid-sixties and said he discovered acrylic paint extra appropriate at capturing the recent, dry landscapes there, because of its quick drying skills. In his autobiography, when discussing his sequence of ‘Splash’ work, he notes that he “cherished the thought of portray this factor that lasts for 2 seconds: it takes me two weeks to color this occasion that lasts for 2 seconds”. This shows how integral the pure properties of acrylic paint have been to his work – as he interlaced the subject material and materials.

Acrylic Spray Paint

Acrylic spray paint was first created round twenty years after the invention of acrylic paint, and although the spray can is actually a instrument for dispersing acrylic paint, it opened up many prospects in artmaking. In 1949, Edward H. Seymour, the proprietor of a paint firm in Sycamore, Illinois, was looking for an answer to portray radiators when his spouse, Bonnie Seymour, urged he make one thing just like an aerosol. Their growth shortly rose to recognition with automotive producers because it streamlined the method of portray automobiles and components.

Spray paint turned central to the trendy road artwork scene, which first emerged in New York Metropolis within the late Nineteen Sixties, after which shortly expanded all through the remainder of the USA. Notable names like Julio 204 and Taki 183 in New York – and Cornbread in Philadelphia – led this new and defiant motion.

The invention of the spray can meant that graffiti and road artwork turned rather more well-liked – not solely was it a fast and exact approach to paint, nevertheless it was a lot simpler to hide. By the Nineteen Nineties, manufacturers equivalent to Molotow and Montana had developed prime quality acrylic spray paints, providing paints that have been weather-resistant and had UV safety.

This brief origin story of the historical past of acrylic paint exhibits how the invention of acrylic paint paved the best way for a lot of pivotal artwork actions, types and strategies. It is among the most adaptable and versatile artist supplies and will actually not be ignored.