Inventor Name
Rand, John Goffe
Repository
Archives of American Art
Reference Services/ILL
Smithsonian Institution
PO Box 37012
Victor Building, Room 2200, MRC 937
Washington, DC 20013-7012
202- 275-2156
http://archivesofamericanart.si.edu/start.htm
Physical Description
0.2 linear ft.
Summary
Portrait painter. Rand was born in Bedford, New Hampshire in 1801. He was apprenticed to a cabinet maker as a young man and later became a portrait painter working under Samuel F.B. Morse. In 1834, he traveled to Europe with his wife, Lavinia Brainerd, where he invented the collapsible paint tube. This and other inventions proved to be without financial rewards for Rand and upon his return to America he again took up portraiture again. He died in New York in 1873. Rand papers include a copy of Rand's will; a letter from Rand to his niece and family correspondence relating to Rand; biographical sketches, including an unpublished biography by Mary Elizabeth Franklin; a list of portraits painted by Rand; 2 U.S. patents for changes to the collapsible paint tube; clippings; a photograph of Rand's tombstone; and one of the first collapsible tubes for oil paint produced by a factory, c. 1832.