Dan Robbins, a package designer who helped to conceive what became known as paint by numbers, died April 1. He was 93.

Paint-by-numbers kits opened up art to the masses. As the packaging on one kit promised, “Every man a Rembrandt.” In 1955, sales hit 20 million kits.

“I never claim that painting by number is art,” he said. “But it brings that experience to the individual who would’t normally pick up a brush, not dip it in paint. That’s what it does.”