KROMA has been manufacturing artist’s acrylic paint in Vancouver, Canada since 1970. Our paint is made by hand in small batches, ensuring quality and freshness. We use 100% acrylic resin and light fast pigments selected from worldwide sources, with the maximum pigment loading possible for each colour. No fillers or extenders are added. All our colours, mediums and gesso are formulated, ground, processed and packaged at our workshop on Granville Island.
Our products are only available directly from us. Because we do not distribute through stores, we are able to keep our prices low. Personal contact with our customers means we can offer excellent technical support, while always ensuring the high quality of our products. Paint can be ordered through this website, by phone or by making a visit to our workshop on Granville Island.
KROMA’S HISTORY
Acrylic paints were first developed for industrial application in the early part of the twentieth century, making use of new synthetic resins. During the 1950s, artists became aware of the possibilities of the medium and acrylic colours began to be formulated specifically for fine art applications. Mexican muralists, requiring paint that would withstand harsh conditions, were among the first to test this durable new medium. By the late 1960s, acrylics had become an important new addition to the artist’s repertoire of painting materials.
In 1970 Gordon Payne began KROMA Industries, as he was dissatisfied with the availability and cost of acrylics in his own career as a painter and educator at UBC. When Vancouver’s Granville Island was first rejuvenated by the Canadian government in the 1970s, transforming disused industrial warehouses under the Granville Street Bridge into a center for artisans and culture, KROMA found a space in the Net Loft building, where it has been in business ever since. Initially Gordon concentrated on a modest range of colours and packaged in large sizes, selling mainly to educational institutions and to professional artists who, in this era of abstract expressionism, often went through large quantities of paints.
After helping casually at the shop as a teenager, Kevin Head joined Gordon full time as an assistant in 1992, having completed his diploma at Emily Carr College of Art. In 1993, Gordon Payne left the day-to-day operations of the shop to concentrate on painting at his studio in the Gulf Islands. It was at this point that Kevin researched milling processes and began grinding pigments in house, leading to greater clarity and vibrancy of KROMA's growing palette of colours.
In 2000, KROMA began to package in tubes, a change that found our paint reaching a broader range of painters who use smaller quantities of paint, or who find dispensing from a tube more convenient.
After completing her degree in philosophy at McMaster University, Jessica Schauteet moved to Vancouver and began helping Kevin at KROMA. In 2015, she took charge while still working closely with Kevin. In her time as head paint maker, Jessica has introduced KROMA’s first hues and other blended pigment colours, as well as expanding KROMA’s collection of single-pigment acrylic colours. Jessica is now assisted by a small team who help her in production and running the shop, allowing her to do lab work and continue product development. She often works with individual artists to create custom colours for specific projects, and as a technical consultant.
KROMA has now been a part of the Vancouver art community, providing paint to painters for over 55 years. Today, KROMA supplies artists all over the world with high quality artist’s acrylic paint mediums and gesso, as well as other artist's materials at affordable prices. We have also expanded our offerings of high quality art supplies from around the world, including brushes from the Escoda factory in Spain, and drawing tools from Viarco’s ArtGraf line in Portugal. Through our web store, we ship to over 15 countries and continue to add more shipping destinations upon request. While our business has slowly grown we still make each colour with considerable care, by hand, in small batches.
