A New Vocabulary of Color: Bocour Oil Paints and Barnett Newman

Abstract

The Bocour Artist Oil Colors Company was the most innovative twentieth century U.S. artists’ paint manufacturer. Although best known for their introduction of Magna Plastic Artist Paint, the company also manufactured several lines of oil paints: Bocour Hand Ground Artist Colors, Bocour Artist Oil Colors and Bellini Artists’ Oil Colors. The popularity of Bocour Company products and the close relationship between the owners and many artists active in New York City in the mid-1900s suggests that Bocour oil paints would be present in artworks, but none have been positively identified to date. We show that a Barnett Newman paint trial in Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies bears six paints with XRF elemental signatures that closely match those of Bocour Artist Oil Colors paints. This product line was available by 1959, and although undated the test swatches on the paint trial seem to relate to 14 works of art dating from 1954 to 1967. This stylistic dating suggests that the paint test not only represents a rare example of Newman planning colors schemes and compositions, but may also document his exploration of the feel and colors of a new paint line.