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Concept
Airbrush
Summary
An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that atomizes and sprays various media, most often paint, but also ink, dye, and foundation. Spray painting developed from the airbrush and is considered to employ a type of airbrush.
Up until the mid-2000s, it was widely published that the airbrush was invented in 1893, but following research undertaken in collaboration with New York University's Conservation Department, and personal support from Professor Margaret Holben Ellis, a more detailed history emerged, which required many authorities such as Oxford Art to update their dictionaries and references.
Depending on the definition requiring compressed air or not, the first spray painting device that could be called an airbrush was patented in 1876 (Patent Number 182,389) by Francis Edgar Stanley of Newton, Massachusetts. This worked akin to a diffuser/atomiser and did not have a continuous air supply. Stanley and his twin brother later invented a process for continuously coating photographic plates (Stanley Dry Plate Company) but are perhaps best known for their Stanley Steamer. No artistic images that used this 'paint distributor/atomiser' exist or are as yet known.
According to the research prepared by Professor Andy Penaluna, the first instrument to use a compressed air supply was named the "paint distributor" was developed by Abner Peeler "for the painting of watercolors and other artistic purposes" and used a hand-operated compressor to supply continuous air. It was rather crude, being based on a number of spare parts in a jeweller's workshop such as old screwdrivers and welding torches. It took four years of further development before a working prototype was developed by Liberty Walkup of Mt. Morris, Illinois. Walkup repatented the work under the name of "air-brush", a name his wife Phoebe Walkup came up with. Thus according to the research, the formal birth of the name 'Air Brush' can be traced to a documented stakeholders' meeting of the new Air Brush Manufacturing Co. at 7:00 p.m. on 6 October 1883, when the name was formally born.
Official source
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