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Yes, famous painters do work in acrylics

January 4th, 2018

Yes, famous painters do work in acrylics

I know there is a snobbery about oils vs acrylics. I first tried acrylics when I was a kid and Liquitex was the only brand and had a limited palette.

I didn't really like them and worked in oils like my grandfather taught me all through college. But the new millennium brought a new attitude towards acrylics for me. All the sudden there were several brands and a rainbow palette. I found myself loving the quick drying feature of acrylics. There was no turning back for me.

Then I heard a lot of poo-pooing about acrylics. They weren't valued the same as oils. But the educated art buyer knows better. A lot of well-known artists whose work sells for big money work in acrylics. Yes, you read that right.

• Ever heard of Robert Motherwell? Check out his "Elegy to the Spanish Republic."
• How about Roy Lichtenstein? He used acrylics a lot, including for his best known work, "Drowning Girl."
• Mark Rothko? Oh yeah. "No. 13 (White, Red on Yellow)."
•Thomas Hart Benton. I'm not making this up. He created several studies of "The Bicyclist" in oil and watercolor but the final was in (oh yeah) acrylics.
• David Hockney painted several California swimming pools in acrylic.
• That rebel Andy Warhol painted his soup cans in acrylics.

And me. I love them so much I can hardly work in other medium.