Jonathan Marsico

Acrylic paint

If oil painting takes root from the 15th century among the Flemish and develops over the centuries with an improvement almost achieved today, acrylic paint on the contrary is a recent painting and linked to modernity and industry. Its quick-drying properties and its need for water as the sole diluent propelled it very quickly onto the painter's market. It is now found in pots, tubes, markers, inks, in spray cans with varying qualities: study, fine, extra-fine ... It is so present that one cannot distinguish one painting from another.

Therefore, here acrylic painter, Jonathan Marsico, explains more about the history of acrylic painting.

History of acrylic painting: modern era painting

Marsico points out that acrylic painting began to take its primitive form in the middle of the 19th century in Germany. We are in the midst of an industrial revolution and chemistry takes its place in scientific research. We then discover a synthetic resin produced by polymerization of acrolein. We had to wait until the early 1930s to see the arrival of the first products derived from this acrylic resin because the manufacturing process had long been expensive and reserved for industrial applications (murals, for cars, etc.)

The talented painter, Marsico, indicates that the first acrylic paintings for artists appear in the United States in New York at Bocour Artist Colors. In 1949, Leonard Bocour proposed Magna: a paint based on pigment ground with acrylic resin and solvents. It only mixed with turpentine and had a very shiny finish. Sam Golden joins his uncle Leonard in the company which gradually becomes the Golden brand. Rothko and Pollock were fans of it.

As Marsico further explains, in 1956, still in the United States, the company Permanent Pigments offered the first water-based acrylic and the first acrylic gesso: the brand is called Liquitex. Wahrol used them extensively.

According to Jonathan Marsico, who holds a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, the introduction to Europe took place later, in the early 1960s, thanks to the British color merchant, Rowney (now Daler-Rowney) who launched Cryla. Very quickly, other European color manufacturers, the French Lefranc & Bourgeois, the Swiss Lascaux and the Dutch Talens, offered their acrylic paints.

Towards the end of the 1960s, acrylic painting became very popular and appreciated by contemporary artists who saw in it new possibilities. It is also used in the restoration of works of art.