Skip to main content
Richard Frumess and Pamela Blum at SEFA Hudson
February 23rd, 2021

Richard Frumess from R&F Paints visits SEFA Hudson

R&F Paints
Luscious Encaustic and Lipstick-Soft oil-based R&F Pigment Sticks®

 

Over the weekend we had the distinct pleasure of a visit to our Hudson location by Richard Frumess, a celebrity in the niche world of hand-made paint manufacturing. Frumess, founder of R&F Handmade Paints, and his wife, encaustic painter Pamela Blum, stopped in to see our current show This Land.

R&F 100 ml Pigment Sticks

Speak to any encaustic painter in the US and they will inevitably mention R&F, the purveyor of inarguably the finest hand-made encaustic paint, mixed from a special blend of beeswax, resin and pigment; and a line of oil sticks, made from linseed oil, pigment and natural wax.

Many of SEFA’s own artists have used R&F products for years: Lisa Pressman, an R&F Core Instructor, describes their encaustic as “luscious and of consistently great quality.” Rachelle Krieger swears by the oil sticks, described on the company website as lipstick soft, “they have a higher pigment content [than other brands], which provides for a richer color. Also, they are the perfect consistency, while other brands tend to be too soft,” she says. Amber George says the encaustic is “superb—saturated with pigment.”

 

Frumess opened R&F in 1988 in Brooklyn, NY, and later moved the company to a small factory in Kingston, NY, near his home in the same Hudson Valley town. In addition to the manufacturing, sales and distribution of these premier paints and supplies, R&F hosts regular workshops on how to paint with their products. While the factory is in full swing, producing the paints, the workshops are on hold until further notice.

— Susan Eisner Eley

R&F Encaustic

Visit R&F Handmade Paints