Lascaux

Lascaux is one of those brands that serious painters seem to discover by word of mouth. You won’t see it filling the shelves at every art shop, but mention it to someone who paints big, bold, flat colour, and there’s a good chance they’ll light up. In sixteen years in the UK art supplies industry, I came to think of Lascaux as a painter’s painter brand: quietly brilliant, made with real care and used by people who know exactly what they want from a paint.

The company was founded in Switzerland in 1963 by Alois K. Diethelm, who’d been training as a paint maker since the 1930s. According to Lascaux, he developed Europe’s first artists’ quality acrylic paint, at a time when acrylics were still new and mostly an American story, and that paint launched the company. It’s still a family business. His daughter Barbara Diethelm, herself a practising painter, took over in the 1990s, and in 2004 she and her husband, the painter Werner Schmidt, set up the charitable Fondation Lascaux. The name comes from the Lascaux caves in south-west France, home to some of the oldest paintings ever made, which feels like a fitting reference for a company so focused on colour that lasts.

Lascaux Artist Acrylic is the flagship. It’s a highly concentrated, intensely pigmented acrylic with excellent lightfastness and weather resistance, which is why it’s been used for serious outdoor work. Dorothea Rockburne painted murals for the Sony Building in New York with it, and it covers the painted pillars of the Tay Road Bridge in Dundee. Bridget Riley, Sol LeWitt and Michael Craig-Martin have all used Lascaux, which tells you something about how well it handles flat, even areas of strong colour. Lascaux Studio Acrylic is the more affordable, high-yield range. It’s opaque, covers well and is ideal for large paintings, murals and anyone who gets through paint quickly.

Lascaux Gouache is the range a lot of illustrators know. It’s an acrylic-based gouache with a lovely satin-matt finish that dries water-resistant, so you can layer it without lifting the colour underneath. It comes in bottles and pots, which makes it good for larger work and for mixing big batches of colour. Resonance is a more unusual range, an acrylic gouache that Lascaux markets as having bioactive qualities, and it’s used in art therapy settings. For watercolour painters there’s Sirius, a fluid watercolour built around Lascaux’s primary system, which uses five primaries plus black and white and, Lascaux says, can mix more than 78,000 hues. Lascaux also makes painting mediums, varnishes and water-based screen printing mediums, and its products are trusted by conservators and restorers too.

The honest bit. Lascaux isn’t cheap, and the Artist Acrylic in particular is priced as a premium paint. It’s also harder to find in the UK than the big names, so you won’t always find the full range in one shop. And because it’s so concentrated, the colours can feel very strong if you’re used to student acrylics, which takes a little getting used to when mixing. But if you want flat, opaque, intense colour that lasts, it’s one of the best experiance of acrylic you can have, and many painters who try it never go back.

I spent nearly a decade as Digital Marketing Manager at ARTdiscount, and with a brand like Lascaux, comparing prices is especially worthwhile. It’s stocked by a handful of UK specialists rather than everyone, so prices and availability vary more than you’d expect. Jackson’s carries a wide Lascaux range, Cass Art stocks the Artist Acrylic sets, Studio Acrylic and gouache, and Great Art sells the Resonance gouache. Because it’s premium, even ten per cent off a set of Artist Acrylic is a meaningful saving.

The best times to buy Lascaux are Black Friday, the January sales and the occasional brand promotion at Jackson’s and Cass Art. I post deals every day for a community of over 36,000 UK artists, and Lascaux offers don’t come round often, so they’re worth jumping on when they do. If you’re trying the brand for the first time, a set of Artist Acrylic is a brillaint way in, and better value than buying the same colours one at a time.

Is Lascaux a good acrylic paint? Yes. It’s a premium Swiss-made paint, highly pigmented and very lightfast, and used by some of the world’s best known painters. What’s the difference between Lascaux Artist and Studio Acrylic? Artist is the more concentrated, premium range, while Studio is more affordable, opaque and made for larger works. Is Lascaux Gouache waterproof? It’s acrylic-based, so it dries water-resistant and can be layered without lifting. What is the Lascaux Sirius system? It’s a primary colour system using five primaries plus black and white, designed to mix a huge range of colours. Where can I buy Lascaux in the UK? Jackson’s, Cass Art and Great Art are the main stockists.

Looking for a Lascaux sale, discount or discount code? Check the price comparisons above, updated in real time, and you’ll always know you’re getting the best current UK price.