Picture Perfect
Psychologist Larry Rubin finds paint-by-numbers artwork food for his mental health.
COLLECTIBLES Magazine, Winter, 1999
By Larry Edwards
No depression allowed here: Psychologist Larry Rubin has turned his offices into museums of amateur art.
Right from the top, there are two things you need to know about Larry Rubin. He's a child psychologist and he collects paint-by-numbers art. Add those facts together and you might suspect that Larry is in touch with his inner child. "It ain't so inner" he jokes, with a dab of self-analysis. "Paint-by-number kits are whimsical - and that's me. They allow me to escape from my own seriousness some times." You'd have to admit it would be hard to take things too seriously with kitties, clowns and flamenco dancers hanging over your head all day.
The 44-year-old Rubin is a funny, loquacious person with an obvious drive toward collecting - and a few theories of his own about the collecting bug. He lives in Victoria Park, Florida, with his wife, Randi, and their two kids, Zachary, 5, and Rebecca, 1. "It's one of the oldest neighborhoods in Ft. Lauderdale," he points out. But that's not where he keeps his huge cache of art. Instead, Larry chooses to hang his paintings in his two offices: The one he uses for his private practice, the other where he teaches.
We begin our house tour - or office tour, if you will - at his private therapy office in Ft. Lauderdale, which is "within walking distance from my home," says Larry. "I work primarily with kids and families and specialize in play therapy. It legitimizes filling my office with fun, kitsch and kids'stuff."
The office is a wood-paneled place that Larry has turned into a fun house. "The office is sort of an extra closet for me," Larry says, pointing out the assortment of wild art, childhood games and eye-popping furniture that occupy the room, floor to ceiling. Underneath Larry's art collection is a pretty basic space, a fine example of what you might call "finished basement" chic (brown carpet, oak-paneled walls, fiberboard ceiling). "It's a very boring '70s look,'' Larry says, "but the colors transform it. They play off of all that sterile brownness. Sitting here really puts people in another place."
Asked if the paintings are ever useful to him in his therapy practice, Larry assents. "I was working with a seven-year-old boy who came in with his stepfather. The kid was so happy. He says, 'Boy, this looks just like Nana's house!' But the stepfather says 'Nana hated those things and I hated them.' They evoked such an interesting warm nostalgia for the kid and such a negative one for the dad. These paintings get very strong reactions of every kind."
As a collector, Larry is a fast worker. He has only been buying paint-by-numbers for three years, but he has already assembled over 300 works and, a little over a year ago, he started a paint-by-numbers newsletter for like-minded collectors. Larry, in fact, has become a recognized authority in the field, and gives us the abridged history of paint-by-numbers: "As far back as the 1920s," he begins, "various art and crafts companies pursued paint-bynumber concepts, such as needlepoint, mosaic and printmaking. Picture Craft was the first one to introduce and market the idea of painting by numbers as we know it today. However, the medium's popularity and commercial growth is credited to the Palmer Paint Company of Detroit. The company introduced its 'Craft Master' line at the 1951 New York Toy Show, and by 1953, Picture Craft was history, and PBN's were making history. Thousands of Craft Master kits were produced daily during PBN's heyday in the '50s, and yearly revenue topped $20 million. The early pictures were made on rolled artists canvas and came with oil paints. The Craftint Corporation introduced canvas-mounted board and acrylic paints, which were faster drying. Craftint and the Art Award Cormpany were Craft Master's major competitors, and the three companies produced hundreds and hundreds of images. By the 1960s, major toy companies like Transogram, Pressman and Hasbro jumped on the bandwagon and created paint-by-number kits in the image of their already successful toy, television and movie products."
In Larry's office, all of the major companies are represented (Hasbro, Craftint, Craft Master, Venus Paradise, etc.). Before continuing, he has a confession to make: "Paint-by-numbers were a rebound hobby after a bad collection fit," he explains. "I was looking for something new to collect after a bad experience with Melmac. Melmac was fun and colorful, but there's just so much plastic dinnerware you can put around the house. I thought I was gonna wow the world with my Melmac. I went to a show down in South Beach and sold like $10 worth at the end of the day. So I switched to paint-by-numbers.
I discovered them on a routine thriftshop run. I suppose I connected with them because of my memory of having Venus Paradise coloring sets when I was a kid. All these paintings have that same kind of look. There's a clear definition of colors and structure. I've always liked that structure." Obviously, Larry puts a lot of thought into what he buys.
This picture of a Keene-style big-eyed girl in a large yellow bonnet hangs over Larry's desk in his provate-practice office. Created by the Art Award Comapny in the '70s, the picture of the innocent-looking girl is what Larry calls his "mascot."
Taking a tour around the office, Larry discusses some of his favorite pieces. Over his desk, he keeps a painting of an odd, blank-faced little girl wearing a big yellow hat. "The Art Award Company created her as part of an appeal to teenagers back in the '70s," he says. "She has that Keene big-eyed quality. I guess she's my mascot."
Larry also has one of the largest paint-by-number paintings we've ever seen. It's an impressive picture of a turbulent ocean, and it hangs proudly over his faux-bamboo '50s love seat, complete with its original cushions, covered in a striking Oriental-motif print fabric whose background color is a screaming yellow.
"That's the biggest darn paint-by-numbers ever in the universe," Larry boasts exuberantly. "It's called "Conflict at Sea" and was one of five pictures that the Craft Master Company produced called 'Super Craft Masters.' It's 27" x 36". The other four scenes in the series are also incredible. I have another one in my other office. It's called something like Autumn Forest."
(Collectors, take note. According to Larry, the other three paintings in the super series are a ballet dancer, a Mediterranean overlook and a French town.)
Larry may be Ft. Lauderdale's paint-by-numbers king, but numerical art is not the only thing for which he has an eye. His office is full of swank, vintage '50s and '60s furniture and accessories that perfectly complement his "art" collection: In addition to the love seat, there are brown-and-orange crushed velvet floral chairs, a floor-to-ceiling red enameled metal fireplace and even a "shagadelic" print area rug. It's an office in which Austin Powers would be quite comfortable discussing his lost mojo.
But the furniture that's dearest to Larry is the collection of blond-wood pieces manufactured by Heywood-Wakefield. His favorite thing is the combination console/shelving unit and room divider on which he keeps his vintage games like Sorry, Stratego, Monopoly, Clue and Candy Land, among others. "It's a two-sided piece made of birch," Larry points out, "that was designed to be in one of those open, '50s houses. There are shelves on both sides, and there's a sliding drawer that comes out to form a desk."
To the right of the room divider, Larry has hung a trio of paint-by-numbers of which he is particularly fond - a deer, a tiger and an elephant, which he bought as a set. "They are all part of the same kit called the 'Big Three' by Craftint," explains Larry. "They have a real Jungle Book feel. They are absolutely pristine and were painted by the same hand 50 years ago."
Grouped together above the matching upholstered '50s chairs in his office at St. Thomas University in Maimi, Florida, is Larry's collection of religious-themed paint-by-number pictures - including a variety of Leonardo and non-Leonardo Last Suppers.
Larry's other office, about 25 miles away, is at St. Thomas University, in Miami, where Larry teaches psychology and counseling to graduate students.
As it turns out, Larry's university office is just as idiosyncratic as his more private one. "This is not the typical office at St. Thomas," he points out - although we can't help but notice that this is where he hangs his vast collection of religious-themed paint-by-number paintings (appropriate, in its way, for St. Thomas). One swift look around reveals a large gathering of Jesus portraits and New Testament tales, including at least four Last Suppers.
"The Last Supper is the most popular of the religious paint-by-numbers," Larry explains. "It's probably the longest-running, unchanged scene in any paint-by-numbers series since they started making them in the '50s. Maybe there's a reason: It evokes faith, as well as memories of family and childhood. It comforts people who paint them, and people often hang them in their own places of eating."
From the sublime (of sorts) to the ridiculous (of sorts), Larry also uses this office to house his black-velvet paintings. "Craft Master and Art Award produced paint-by-numbers on black velvet kits," explains Larry. "Actually, the surface that the image was painted on had a velveteen texture over the traditional paint-by-numbers canvas board. It was like painting in negative. The spaces that were numbered for painting did not have the velveteen surface, and that's what you filled in. But it gave the illusion that the painting was done right on the velvet. There were also green and gold velvet sets. For the most part, the subjects of these velveteen paintings seem to have been clown heads and water."
And - as if the Bible scenes, seascapes and Emmett Kellys were not enough - the office also houses an enviable collection of Heywood-Wakefield furniture, including a kneehole desk. "It is one of the most coveted pieces in the Heywood-Wakefield line," says Larry. "Look at the way the drawers curve outward. The desk was like finding a gem that just needed a good buffing."
In addition to the desk, two two-tiered Heywood-Wakefield end tables nestle between two '50s blond-wood chairs and matching sofa, which are upholstered in a vintage red-and-white floral fabric. In front of the chairs and sofa sits an oval Heywood-Wakefield revolving cocktail table, on top of which Larry displays an assortment of spaghetti poodles from his large menagerie.
Two matching '50s lamps with double shades and wonderful Legerlike bases adorn the top of the end tables, and on the table that serves as an exclamation point to the sofa, Larry has also arranged some of his travel baskets. "Each one of them," explains Larry, "has a penny glued to the top; the date of the penny is the date the basket was made."
Taking us on a mini tour, Larry points out the 1919 Victrola, which stands next to this table. 'The best things about that Victrola,'' says Larry, "are that it works and smells like my grandmother's closet. It has a felt turntable, and there's nothing like listening to Sinatra on a 78. On top of the VictroLa," he continues, "there are some boxy wooden purses by Enid Collins. I love wooden purses - not that I've ever worn one. They are all intact with all the beads and felt and the mirrors inside.
Larry also owns an assortment of vintage Life magazines and last, but definitely not least, he bolsters his paint-by-numbers collection by also accumulating old PBN catalogs and kits. In fact, it was a kit in the article on Robert Groos's paint-bynumbers collection in the Summer 1997 issue of Collectibles that drew Larry to the kits in the first place. And now he's gotten so far into the scene that he's become good friends with one of the original paint-by-numbers artists, Dan Robbins, who produced the early sets for the Palmer Paint Company.
"Robbins was the painter behind the paintings for Crafts Master from the beginning," Larry says. "After doing some research, I connected to him in Illinois, and over these last three years we've become buddies. It's great to hear him talk about the history of the craft - what it was like from the inside - but he's also become a mentor. He's an older gentleman, but he's still making this paint-by-numbers stuff happen in the world."
Given his obvious passion, the same might be said someday about Larry Rubin.
getting to know you
Larry Rubin continues his Palnt-by-numbers quest and always welcomes new readers to his "Paint-by-numbers" newsletter. The newsletter, which Is published four times a year, covers everything from Paint-by-numbers history to prlclng to preservation tips. An annual subscription is $20. For more information, contact: Larry Rubin, 2100 N.E. 52 Court, Ft. Lauderdale. FL 33308; 954-267-0408: E-mail: rubin@pstcomputers. com