Counting for taste

In 1950, Max Klein, President of Detroit’s Palmer Paint Company, was looking for a way to jack up demand for paint. Dan Robbins, a commercial artist employed by the company, remembered Leonardo da Vinci used to give numbered patterns to his apprentices. The following year, Palmer introduced the Craft Master line of paint-by-number kits with the slogan, “Every man a Rembrandt,” and a craze was born. The company sold 12 million kits. Robbins became the most exhibited artist in the history, a title he still holds, according to the on-line Paint by Number Museum, entry portal pictured above. Palmer went on to...