“In 1952, Abstract No. One, a cubist still life, was awarded third prize at a San Francisco-area art show. After the competition, it was revealed that the richly colored artwork had been painted from a paint-by-number kit. An exhibition of kit paintings at the Smithsonian in 2001 and the accompanying book by William L. Bird, Jr. cite this competition as the start of the paint-by-number craze.”
—Eric Alberta, from Paint by Number, a 2003 calendar from Workman Publishing, New York.
great! Didn’t Warhol do a twist on this?
Yes, some of Andy’s early work, before he found his stride, were allusions to paint-by-number art. There were some tromp l’oeil “unfinished” PBNs as I recall. This was around the time when was deciding whether to “drip” or not. . . .