Maker record
Reeves
Reeves is an English artists’ materials maker known for watercolours, paint boxes and supplies for drawing and painting. Its documented product range includes watercolour cakes and boxes, oil colours in tubes, pencils, crayons, papers and sketchbooks. The firm served professional artists as well as the educational and amateur markets, later expanding into school paints and leisure art and craft materials. Reeves remains an established name in artists’ supplies.
- Founded
- 1766
- Countries
- United Kingdom
- Locations
- London, England.
- Founders
- William Reeves
The story of Reeves
William Reeves was an artists’ colourman in London. The National Portrait Gallery’s directory cautions that evidence for him trading independently before 1780 is lacking, and notes that later Reeves catalogues claimed different foundation dates. William’s brother Thomas entered partnership with him in 1780; William later traded independently, while Reeves & Inwood operated from 1796. The firm supplied artists’ materials, including watercolours and paint boxes. A surviving W. J. Reeves & Son box dates to 1819–1827, when William John Reeves and James Reeves were partners; after William John’s death, Henry Reeves joined the business.
By the nineteenth century Reeves sold a broad range of drawing and painting materials. Its catalogues document watercolours, pencils, crayons, papers and sketchbooks, and the firm introduced oil colours in tubes around 1842–45. Reeves became a public limited company in 1890. In the twentieth century, it expanded its educational and leisure art and craft business, acquired Dryad in 1972, and sold the Reeves Dryad business to Reckitt & Colman in 1974. Reeves was acquired by AB Wilhelm Becker in 1991 and its brand was revived in 1995, with another relaunch in 2017.