Art Materials Research and Study Center

The collection was officially established in 1994 to house art materials, technical information and trade literature (advertising, customer technical communications and catalogues). As you can see here, these collection items are organized in an archival/library style. The idea to build a collection like this was of Zora Pinney, she was an art materials enthusiast who ran an art materials retail store in California in the 1970s. In her store, she sold a lot of products that she tested herself and personally selected ones that she believed artists should use. Her donation of 6000 artist materials established the basis of this collection. Many of the first items were from the 1970s. The collection eventually expanded beyond that time frame into the 1980s up until now. The collection also includes vintage materials from the 19th century and the early 20th century. There are also artist specific materials in the collection – mostly donations from the artist’s studio and their foundation at the time of the artist’s death. The items in this collection are from domestic suppliers and manufacturers and also international ones. There are now more than 24,000 items housed in this collection.