Extra Soft
Artists Pastels
Horadam Watercolour
Norma Oil Colours
Mussini Oil Colours
Graeme Harris visits the factories of Schmincke & da Vinci
The History of
H. Schmincke & co.
At the end of the 19th century the paint chemists Hermann Schmincke and Josef Horadam began to explore the idea of reintroducing to the world the extraordinarily luminous and brilliant resin oil formulations of the old masters.
Over the course of the previous century, painting in the countryside had become so predominant that resin formulas, which dried too quickly to travel well, had become obscure. With the introduction of the airtight metal tubes, Schmincke and Horadam saw an opportunity to provide the artists of the day with a truely superior artists' oil, and so set out to Italy where traditional studio painting was still taught, in search of the nearly forgotten resin oil formulations. In 1881, at the Academy of Fine Art in Florence, they secured the precision formulations of the professor Cesare Mussini, a guardian of old-masters techniques, and on these formulations the two founded their manufacturing establishment under the name of H.Schmincke & Co. In subsequent years artists' colours to suit all techniques were introduced, such as Josef Horadam's patent watercolours of 1892. Through the entire 20th century, every generation of owner has lead the company to its current position as one of the world's leading manufacturers of finest artists' colours. The present management and employees are proud to continue working into the future on the basis of their achievement. |
