Prior to 1841 artists’ paints were traditionally stored in pig bladders tied with string. Not only did this entail the messy business of piercing the bladder with a pin to access the paint but artists also had to contend with the frequent problem of leaky, split and burst bladders. Ouch! Enter John Goffe Rand, an American painter based in London. Rand’s frustration with his paints drying out before he could use them led to his revolutionary and ingenious invention the crimped paint tube. Made from tin with a screw cap, the tube was transportable, secure, resealable and lightweight and most importantly, the paints inside remained in a stable and workable condition for an indefinite period of time. Cut forward to the Impressionists painting en plain air and the invention of dazzling new pigments by C19th industrial chemists and the rest is history. All hail John Goffe Rand, where would contemporary art be without him? As Pierre-August Renoir said, “without colours in tubes, there would be no Cézanne, no Monet, no Pissarro and no Impressionism”
