Gamblin Artists Colors
True Colors
by Randy Gregg, The Oregonian Staff (Reprinted with permission)


When art stars such as David Hockney and Jim Dine reach for their paints, they grab Portland's Gamblin Oils, some of the best in the world.

The best advertisement for the products of Portland paintmaker Robert Gamblin is a photograph tacked high on his office wall. The picture shows a beaming David Hockney, whose colorful paintings are internationally acclaimed, sitting in front of shelves stocked exclusively with Gamblin Oils.

Where leading artists' paint manufacturers such as Winsor & Newton are owned by multinational conglomerates, Gamblin produces his paint with a staff of local artists in an unmarked Pearl District warehouse. While the big boys buy slick advertisements in national art magazines, Gamblin markets his paint almost exclusively by word of mouth. But the more significant difference between Gamblin Oils and its competitors is the quality of the paint. According to Steven Steinberg, owner of New York Central Art Supply - the country's oldest art supply store, located in the heart of the art world's capitol - Gamblin Oils are "unquestionably, the best oil paint made in America."

Besides Hockney, the 46-year-old Gamblin counts among his loyalists some of the country's most renowned painters. New York artist Jim Dine ordered pounds of Gamblin's paint. For a recent exhibition, Alexander Lieberman used an equivalent of an entire day's production of Gamblin's Titanium White, Silver and Mars Black. One of the country's top printmaking studios, Tyler Graphics in New York, recently had Gamblin develop a series of special inks for a new series of lithographs by Roy Lichtenstein.

"If I didn't have Bob's Transparent Orange," New York artist Wolf Kahn says of one of the half-dozen paints that did not exist until Gamblin invented them, "I would have to quit." Of the world's 12 main manufacturers of artists' oils, six are small, high quality operations like Gamblin's. But like Paris' Sennilier and Belgium's Blockx, they are all based in Europe. "The Americans gave up the high ground for the larger middle market," says Gamblin. "But we're trying to take that back."

His palette has expanded

From the first 5 gallons of white paint he made in his garage 15 years ago, Gamblin has expanded to 70 colors, each developed and painstakingly tested, one at a time. He's also developed printing inks, mediums and solvents - 575 products in all. This fall, he will introduce a revolutionary new product he developed in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Yet Gamblin does little promotion, relying on small black-and-white advertisements in regional art journals and his own lectures in art schools.

"My business has been built," says Gamblin, "one painter at a time."

The first was Gamblin himself. Unusual for paintmakers, he is also an artist. A native Portlander, he studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he became as fascinated with the materials of art as the making. On moving back to Portland he began experimenting, teaching himself not only the age-old recipes for oil paint, but enough chemistry to adapt them with modern materials and safety standards.

Entirely self-taught, Gamblin now sits shoulder to shoulder with scientists and engineers as chairman of the Task Force on Physical Properties for the American Society for Testing and Materials, an organization that sets voluntary standards for everything from chemicals to steel girders.

The two keys to Gamblin's success are simple. His oils are made as purely as possible with the best pigments available, and he sells in the quantities that artists really use. You can buy a 1.25-ounce tube of Gamblin's paint, but you can also buy a quart and save 50 percent.

"He's one of the real idealists in the color industry," says artist Kahn. "He takes no shortcuts for the balance sheet. And his prices are a lot better than foreign paints."

Though Gamblin describes his sales tally as "private," he says the business has grown 18 to 20 percent each year. "But the biggest joy," says Gamblin, "is the paint running through the mill could end up in the National Gallery or become a family heirloom. It will pass on the energy of the artist."

The process of making oil paint is exceedingly simple. As Gamblin's wife and business partner, Martha Bergman, puts it, "Making oils has more to do with cooking than chemistry."

Indeed, like the best bread, the best paints use few ingredients, primarily vegetable oil and pigment. It's the quality of contents and the care with which they are mixed that count.

"We try to maximize the money in the tube," says Gamblin in a rare and brief slip into a sales-rap tone. "The best art materials are so expensive. The very people who should be using them can't afford them."

The biggest cost is the pigment, virtually none of which is actually manufactured for the art industry. Cadmium is made for plastics because it stays stable at high temperatures. Cobalt is used for coloring copper-wire insulation and aluminum siding for its ability to withstand stress, heat and light. Earth colors are mainly used to tint concrete and stucco. Transoxides are made for the auto industry.

The properties that make aluminum siding last for 50 years can make an artwork last more than 500. Yet, of the tens of thousands of colorants available, Gamblin says fewer than 150 meet the high-grade requirements for painting and printmaking.

"It's easy to mix a yellow and blue and instead of green get black," he says.

Three machines do the bulk of the work: a mixer, a three-roll mill and a filler and closer, which seals the paint in tubes.

Everything else is manual labor, from labeling to boxing. Even Gamblin's color charts are hand painted for a truer sense of the colors, a practice that is unique among oil paint manufacturers.

No sign on the door

Bathed in the northern light that painters crave, Gamblin's Pearl District factory is most striking for what is absent. There is no sign on the door (in order to discourage bargain-hunting artists), and there is no smell. Dust extractors stationed next to the mixers suck away the tiny clouds of pigments as they're being poured. Gamblin uses no lead, mercury or arsenic in his paint, even though they might actually make some colors more intense.

"We're into great painting," he says, "but we're worried about people around here."

That concern also extends to his customers. Gamblin uses only odorless mineral spirits. He developed a series of organic colors that correspond to more toxic classical paints. He's currently working on a substitute for lead white, the buttery but highly toxic paint favored by Van Gogh (who reputedly even ate it) for its thick, juicy textures.

"Bob takes the long view," Mark Mahaffey, a former printer for Los Angeles' renowned Gemini studio who set up shop in Portland last year. "He wants to keep artists buying his products by keeping them alive longer."

But more than being customers, artists also have played a key research-and-development role in his business. He once held a "paint-in," where local artists tested his oils against the competition. Painters frequently call him directly for technical consultations.

Nationally lauded San Francisco Bay area painter Nathan Oliveira frequently enlists Gamblin to make special batches of paint for him. "Knowing your paintmaker," says Oliveira, "is like knowing your neighborhood baker."

All employees are artists

Whether they are mixing paint, filling tubes or hand painting color charts, all of Gamblin's employees are working painters and printmakers. Some even trade their labor for paint.

The artists, says Gamblin, are "a fabulous asset. Everybody knows the value of what they're doing. It's quality control at every step."

Local artists also have played a role in research and development. Printmakers Tom Prochaska, Paul Miller, Martha Pfasnschmidt and Liza Jones, among others, worked with Gamblin to take his first step into a new market: printing inks.

Most inks are adapted from the commercial printing industry. They are made from huge automated presses and are loaded with additives that reduce the intensity of their color. Prochaska recalls trying all kinds of recipes that required everything from pot boiling linseed oil to adding onions and bread a la 18th century inks. They developed a test plate with every single printing technique from etching to aquatint.

"We didn't want a generic ink," recalls Prochaska.

The result was four inks ranging from warm to cool. In the tradition of Chicago and Frankfurt inks, Gamblin named them "Portland Blacks," in honor of the community that developed them.

At the behest of art supply dealers such as Steinberg, Gamblin has expanded his array of inks. "Printmaking is a bastard industry," says Steinberg. "It makes so much sense, don't you think, to take oil paint and adapt it into a fully pigmented printing ink. But nobody but Bob has done that. And the printers love it."

Coming soon: a varnish

Though most of what Gamblin has developed is for the creation of art, in September, he will introduce an important new product for its preservation: a varnish.

Since the 12th century, the varnish of choice among artists has been "damar," made from the secretions of the Southeast Asian shorea and hopea trees. But in about 30 years after its application to a painting, damar eventually yellows, gaining what often is called a "gallery tone." It also is difficult to remove, requiring paint damaging mineral spirits.

Synthetic varnishes have been developed but all have a high molecular weight. That means they won't sit low in the microscopic landscape of the paint. They absorb rather than reflect light, causing the colors to loose [sic] their saturation.

Gamblin describes the effect: "It's taking a Monet and wrapping it in cellophane."

Working with Rene de la Rie, a conservation scientist at the National Gallery, who researched varnishes for 10 years, Gamblin has developed "Gamvar" - the first synthetic varnish with a low molecular weight to be sold commercially.

"Bob is unique," says de la Rie. "Most manufacturers keep bringing out inferior products. But he is totally committed to marketing the best."

For most artists, the highest honor achievable would be to have their work in the National Gallery or the Metropolitan Museum. And it's a boast Gamblin can make - even if only he and the painters know it.

  
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Gamblin Artists Colors Co. PO Box 15009 Portland, OR 97293 USA
Telephone: 503.235.1945  Fax: 503.235.1946