Free Republic

Dan Robbins, the artist behind the paint-by-numbers craze that swept America, has died in Sylvania, Ohio, at the age of 93, his son told the AP news agency. He was working at a paint products firm in the 1940s when he invented the kits. By the 1950s millions were being sold across the US every year. His inspiration for the idea came from Leonardo da Vinci, who used a similar method when teaching his apprentices how to paint. Mr Robbins first joined Palmer Paint, a company selling children's paint sets, after serving in World War Two.Dan Robbins with a paint-by-numbers...

Entrepreneur artist who hangs in one in 20 US homes accused of fraud and drunken antics "There's over 40 walls in the average American home," a business manager for the artist Thomas Kinkade once said, "and Thom says our job is to figure out how to populate every single wall in every single home and every single business throughout the world with his paintings." Kinkade's luridly idyllic landscapes, full of quaint cottages and glowing firelight, already hang in an estimated one in 20 US homes. "In the often hurried, unsympathetic and complex world we live in, the images Thomas Kinkade...