Airbrush...The Story

Hi Folk

Have you ever wondered how the airbrush came about...well the following extract from one of my reports will give you some idea.

Interestingly, the airbrush owes its very existence to inventor Abner Peeler who designed and built the first one around 1879. But it was not until Peeler met and teamed up with Liberty Walkup that the airbrush became a commercial success.

The business, “The Airbrush Manufacturing Co” was formed in 1883 and production started shortly afterwards. Of course color photography was yet to be invented and so in those early days people commissioned specialist artists to touch up their black and white photos with the necessary colors. But with the advent of the airbrush all that was to change very quickly as artists realised how much more professionally they could do the re-touching of photos, and in fact paintings and artwork generally. The opportunities for different mediums of work spawned a whole new industry and gave work to hundreds of Americans and later the World as people really started to comprehend what this small instrument could do for all artwork.

But, back to the history,…there were many other inventors snapping at the heels of Peeler and Walkup. People like Burdick, Wold, Paasche, Thayer & Chandler to name a few. And new developments soon overtook the original invention, so that by the 1890’s others were gaining the limelight for their improved models.

How about that!

Jay