Blockx Artist Colors from Belgium • Founded in 1865
Founded in 1865 by Jacques Blockx I, the company is well known worldwide and appreciated by famous artists' for its extra-fine oils colors. Today, Blockx perpetuates the tradition and offers the best quality products to artists : Oils Colors, Watercolors, Pastels, Pigments, and Auxiliaries.

Already in 1865, his painter friends were desperate to find the good colors of the past. They were no longer making colors themselves in their workshops and, at that time, paints were starting to be offered by a new industry. It was for these painters that Jacques BLOCKX, a wealthy chemist, went to work.

To quote Salvador Dali, writing about Jacques Blockx the founder in "50 secrets of craftsmanship": "This man who never painted, will contribute more to the painters of tomorrow than what we will have accomplished, all the modern painters together".

In his book "Compendium" published in 1926 he wrote "In a word, I reject every colour which does not possess the requisite qualities for ensuring complete permanence in artistic painting". As nice they can be, we never indeed prepare transient or unstable shades. About the quality of ingredients used for making pigments he wrote on his order form around 1890: "My products are certified chemically pure and sold with my registered signature. Our quality is guaranteed!"

More than 100 years later, analyses made by official laboratories worldwide on paintings confirm it.

Jacques BLOCKX IV writes on color charts : "We do not, and never have done, prepare transient or unstable shades. A classification by degree of stability would, therefore, be out of place". He will also add about watercolor : "I guarantee maximum stability against light, of all my shades, which will insure, through time, your talent as a watercolor painter through your works of art".

It is this very legacy of the finest quality artists colors always slowly ground on stone mills that the 5th generation guarantee and offer you today.

The pioneer spirit is intact.

WHAT MAKES BLOCKX SO DIFFERENT?

Pigments are finely selected and used PURE, at their best saturation. We never use additives or charges. Your colors are pure, bright and deep with a very little quantity of product.

They can be mixed direct on canvas. Your paint is much brighter, and more intensely and deeply colored. Iron oxides, earths pigments and blacks are ground with linseed oil. Other pigments are ground with poppyseed oil which prevents yellowing and dries without wrinkling or mottling.

Your paints are brighter and maintain that brightness over time. We still use STONE mills, the only ones able to reproduce a handmade job. Your paint is smooth, has buttery consistency and is easily mixed on canvas.

We make only traditional products of the highest quality. It means that we do not produce acrylics for instance or second range quality product. We never use non lightfast pigments. We have never made, and will never make, second quality of paints. We want artists to be able to paint without worrying about the quality of their paints, so we make only the best one.

All our colors are made in our workshop in Belgium by specialized craftsmen working under the leadership of Jacques Blockx himself. Every step of making is strictly checked and a sample of each batch is carefully kept for years. Our own tests made on our products more than 140 years ago by renowned flemish masters under the leading of our founder Jacques Blockx are still kept.

The unique experience of 5 generations of chemists in the same family.

Blockx Oil
Blockx Watercolor
Blockx Pastel
Blockx Amber Varnish & Medium