On NPR's All Things Considered, I heard about this nifty exhibition:
Paint By Number: Accounting For Taste in the 1950's.
"The simulation of creative experience was a key selling point for paint by number. In this trade-show demonstration, the exhibitor emphasized the point with this "believe it or not" notice: "The lady painting this picture is not a painter." Among its harshest critics, the hobby seemed less a simulation than a violation of art, an attack on the last vestige of personal expression in an increasingly impersonal consumer society."
Exhibiting at the National Museum of American History from April 6 - December 31, 2001.
Also for your impersonal consumption: Le Salon de Paint-by-numbers
