Grumbacher
Grumbacher is an American manufacturer of art materials. The company offers products for artists including oil, water-miscible oil, watercolor and acrylic paints, as well as brushes and painting media. It was founded in 1905 by Max Grumbacher and was a subsidiary of the Sanford L.P., a Newell Rubbermaid company, until September 2006. It is now owned by Chartpak, Inc., headquartered in Leeds, Massachusetts.
Products
Grumbacher markets both collegiate and professional grade artist products. The collegiate grade products carry the "Academy" name branding. The Academy line currently consists of Oil, Acrylic, and Watercolor paints as well as 3 brush lines. The Grumbacher professional product lines consist of "Grumbacher MAX" a water-mixable oil paint; which means they can be diluted using water instead of conventional solvents. There are 60 "MAX" colors available. They also market "Grumbacher PRETESTED" oil paints (90 colors); which are conventional linseed-oil based paints for professional artists. The professional line was rounded out in the Spring of 2008 with the return of "Grumbacher FINEST" watercolors (54 colors). Along with manufacturing paint, Grumbacher currently produces 9 brush lines as well as a full line of media, grounds, solvents, varnishes and artist accessories.
Grumbacher Watercolors: Grumbacher's current line of watercolors has the Academy line, a student line in 7.5ml tubes and the Finest line, a professional grade in 14ml tubes. The colors in both lines offer a diverse palette and are easily as rich and light fast as most competitive grade lines. Grumbacher just released a superior professional grade line, Grumbacher Finest, which had a brief stint with a name change of Prismacolor watercolors under Sandford's ownership.