Blockx, colour as a passion since 1865

A family history

Founded in 1865 in Belgium by Jacques Blockx I, the BLOCKX brand is today recognised by artists worldwide for the quality of its oil colours. At the time, the founder’s Belgian artist friends despaired that the beautiful traditional colours made in artists’ studios were no longer available, replaced by industrial methods. Jacques Blockx I, a chemist with a passion for colours and pigments, decided to develop them for them in a small laboratory on his property.

“To find a formula that will give oil colours the necessary qualities of solidity, brilliance and beauty, that is the goal I have tried to achieve

René Magritte Camille Pissarro Paul Signac James Ensor Fernand Khnopff

Jacques Blockx I & the quest for legendary colours

The story begins in 1860.

The industrial revolution had already been underway for a long time, and the manufacture of artists’ colours was no exception. The large workshops had disappeared, and the artists no longer prepared their colours there. They buy them from the new manufacturers, but they already despair of the good old quality that these new manufacturers do not know how to offer them or no longer offer them. Jacques Blockx I, a Belgian chemist and enthusiast, set out to find the secret of the “good colours of yesteryear” for his artist friends.

A unique know-how since 1865

1865

Birth of Blockx

Artists such as Van Beers, Fraçois de Lamorinière, Van Dyck, Evenepoel or Opsomer were grouped together to express their needs in oils to Jacques Blockx.