Pro Arte

Pro Arte is one of those brands that quietly proves the "made in Britain" story still genuinly means something in art supplies. Founded in 1973 by Roy Thompson, an artist and former Winsor & Newton salesman who decided he'd rather build brushes than sell someone else's, the company has stayed in the same corner of Skipton, North Yorkshire, for over fifty years now — still family-run, with Roy's son Peter and now grandson Johnny both part of the business. I spent close to a decade as Digital Marketing Manager at ARTdiscount, one of the UK's largest online art retailers, and Pro Arte was genuinly one of the brands we stocked and sold throughout my time there — it's a name I know properly, not from a press release.

What makes Pro Arte's story genuinly interesting is the 1979 breakthrough that still defines the brand today. Sable brushes had always been the gold standard for fine art work, prized for their spring and their ability to hold and release colour beautifully — but sable is a natural material, and quality varies with the animal it comes from, which frustrated a brand built on consistency. Roy and his team spent years researching an alternative, eventually developing a polyester filament that could genuinly mimic sable's performance without the inconsistency. They called it Prolene, and it became one of the first synthetic brushes taken seriously by professional artists rather than dismissed as a cheap substitute. It's still one of Pro Arte's best-selling ranges nearly fifty years later, now joined by Prolene Plus for an even more refined synthetic feel.

The range genuinly covers the full spread of what a working artist needs. Alongside Prolene and Prolene Plus, Pro Arte's Sterling range is a versatile, affordable synthetic suited to both acrylic and oil work, while the Renaissance mop range is built specifically for soft, controlled watercolour blending. For anyone still wanting a genuine natural hair option, Pro Arte continues to produce sable, squirrel and hog bristle brushes using techniques passed down through the company's three generations, alongside the distinctive Roy Ranson Hake brushes — long-handled goat hair brushes styled after Japanese hake brushes, designed for the kind of fast, loose painting technique Ranson himself was known for. Every brush, natural or synthetic, is still genuinly handcrafted at the Skipton factory rather than mass-produced overseas, which is genuinly rare for a brand at this scale and price point.

Getting the best price on Pro Arte brushes takes a bit of legwork if you're checking retailers one at a time, since a brand this well-established and well-loved is stocked widely across the UK — which is exactly the situation our price comparison tool exists to solve. Rather than checking Jackson's Art, Cass Art, ARTdiscount and the rest individually, we pull current prices together in one place so you can see the best available deal without the hassle. Sales on specific Pro Arte ranges do come up periodically, particularly around seasonal promotions, so it's genuinly worth checking back regularly if there's a specific brush or set you're after rather than buying the moment you spot it.

A few questions come up regularly about Pro Arte, so it's worth answering them honestly here. Are Pro Arte brushes actually as good as more expensive imported brands? In my experience, and in the experience of a genuinly large number of professional artists who've stuck with the brand for decades, yes — the quality-to-price ratio is genuinly one of the best in the UK market, precisely because Pro Arte controls their own manufacturing rather than paying a premium for outsourced production. Are the synthetic ranges actually comparable to natural hair? For most working purposes, genuinly yes — Prolene specifically was developed to solve exactly that question, and it's held up for nearly fifty years of professional use. Where should you buy from? Anywhere genuinly reputable stocking the brand, but always worth comparing prices first, since the same brush can vary more between UK retailers than people expect. Check our price comparison above for the full current range, and keep checking back for the best available deals and discounts on Pro Arte brushes