Eliyahu Mirlis: History of acrylic paint

History of acrylic paint

American painter Eliyahu Mirlis shares that acrylic compounds began to be synthesized in the mid-19th century, however it was the German chemist Otto Rohm who actually brought their practical potential to light, or put another way, he was the first to wonder how to make acrylic paint.

According to Eliyahu Mirlis, in 1901 Rohm published his dissertation on the products of the polymerization of acrylic acid. As early as 1915 Röhm secured a German patent for the polyacrylic ester as a paint binder, this for use in drying oils in lacquers and industrial paints. In these early years, acrylic resins were primarily for industrial use.

Acrylic paint as an Artistic medium

As Eliyahu Mirlis further shares, the first experiments with acrylic paint in artistic contexts began in the first half of the 20th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, Mexican muralists began to experiment with these synthetic media.

In 1936, David Alfaro Siqueiros founded and maintained a workshop in New York City to experiment with the latest synthetic media and the methods of applying it, many of which were used in his 1937 “Echo of a Scream”.

Eliyahu Mirlis points out that a notable attendee to his workshop was Jackson Pollock, who has since started using glossy synthetic enamel paints for his dripping and pouring techniques. WPA mural artists of the Depression era also experimented with synthetic paints.

As it has been specified by Eliyahu Mirlis, by the late 1940s, Leonard Bocour and Sam Golden offered an early version of acrylic paints under the name "Magna", which were, in fact, mineral spirits rather than water-based paints.

Eliyahu Mirlis indicates that it is here that we can cite the names of several renowned artists who experimented with this new painting medium, such as Mark Rothko, Kenneth Noland, Barret Newman and Roy Lichtenstein.

The talented painter Eliyahu Mirlis, who has been using the acrylic technique for the creation of his artworks, shares that in 1950, Rohm and his business partner Otto Haas introduced the first acrylic emulsion designed for painting, which became the cornerstone for all acrylic emulsions by contemporary artists. In 1960, they were finally promoted for commercial sale.