Art Materials Firm Moves with the Times

Published: 2011-01-14

Art materials company Winsor and Newton can attribute its success to keeping up-to-date with scientific advances.

The organisation's initial accomplishments were a result of its thorough technical approach to manufacturing art materials which were famed for their dependability regardless of complexity of the product.

In its earliest days of the 1830s, Winsor and Newton began to create new colours that were not already available to artists, who previously had to try and mix raw materials in order to produce the shades they required.

With ready-made oils and water colours, amateur artists could bid farewell to the incredibly tiresome and labour-intensive process of mixing, which was really the preserve of professionals with laboratory experience.

Talented artists could now spend more time on developing their craft in a bid to make a living as they would not be consumed by attempting to create the necessary hues and colours for their paintings.

These technological advances gave Winsor and Newton the edge over their competitors as oil paints were originally supplied in pigs' bladders which were securely tied at the top to prevent leaking.

By 1840, the company patented the glass paint tube but the real breakthrough came the following year when James Goff Rand invented the collapsible metal tube, which revolutionised the art materials industry.

Winsor and Newton used this develop to perfect tin tubes based on its own design and these soon were recognised as conventional containers for oil colours and the company could then uniquely offer moist water colours in tubes.

This method is still the typical method of supplying paint art materials to this day and this innovation lead to immense popularity in the art world and also gained Winsor and Newton recognition from the royal family.

The company were selected as "Artists' Colourmen to Queen Victoria" in 1841 and even now they have the regal seal of approval with the Royal Warrant, by appointment to Prince Charles.

Winsor and Newtons' decedents were employed by the company until the late 1970s and the firm was acquired by Reckitt & Colman who passed ownership to A. B. Wilhelm Becker.

Furthermore, Dorothy Sayers' detective novel "Five Red Herrings" repeatedly referenced Winsor and Newton paints in the plot which features an artist who is murdered and six other painters are suspected of killing him.

The culprit is discovered by their specific habits, which include what kind of paint is used by the murderer.