Pigments have personality. Williamsburg® Artist Oil Colors offers a diverse palette of professional oils, each formulated to reveal the unique character of its pigment. The result is color with luminous depth, nuanced complexity, and subtle variation in every stroke. Rooted in traditional craftsmanship and enhanced by current research and extensive testing for lightfastness, consistency, and longevity, Williamsburg helps artists realize their vision with confidence.
Artist Oil Colors
Fresh look, new features -
161 Color Range
Paint That Reveals
More than a tool, Williamsburg Artist Oils become an extension of the artist's hand. With over 160 colors, each uniquely formulated to highlight the character of its pigment, Williamsburg® preserves the wide range of effects that oil paint offered in the past, when artists mulled their own paints. Colors can feel gritty, smooth, tacky, or dense, with variations in sheen and opacity, while delivering exceptional luminosity and covering power. Made with premium alkali-refined linseed oil and produced in small batches, Williamsburg® Artist Oils are backed by rigorous quality standards, independent lightfastness testing, and ongoing research to ensure permanence and performance. Paint Making Philosophy
Artist-Lead Heritage
At a certain point in an artist’s practice, technique gives way to sensitivity. They begin to look for paint that responds more precisely to their hand, that builds or resists in meaningful ways, that allows for subtlety without sacrificing strength. Driven by this same desire, expressionist painter Carl Plansky developed Williamsburg Artist Oils from his Brooklyn studio in the mid- 1980s. The result is not just paint that works, but paint that reveals. For artists ready to deepen their mastery and refine their sensitivity to color, surface, and gesture –Williamsburg Artist Oils meets them there. Read the Full History
Take a quick look at Williamsburg Artists Oils
GOLDEN® The Mark of Professional Grade Paint.
Williamsburg Artist Oils joined the GOLDEN family of brands in 2010. For nearly half a century, artists have relied on GOLDEN products for their professional performance, exceptional color permanence, and rigorous testing for stability, durability, and lightfastness. Plus, every product is supported by extensive technical resources, application guidance, and direct access to GOLDEN's Materials & Applications Support team, helping artists make informed decisions and create with confidence. Located in rural Upstate New York, GOLDEN is an employee-owned company, guided by a shared commitment to supporting artists through exceptional products, expert guidance, and ongoing education. Read more about Golden’s Legacy.
Discover: Williamsburg Artist Oil Sets
Discover the expressive performance of Williamsburg Artist Oil Colors through our expertly curated collections and sets. Designed to simplify color selection, these sets allow artists to explore specific color families or build a well-rounded palette with confidence. Convenient and economical, they offer an ideal introduction to the breadth and richness of the Williamsburg range.
Williamsburg Mixing Colors Set
This 8-color set offers a balanced selection of colors allowing artists to mix an extensive range with a limited palette.
Williamsburg Iridescent Colors Set
Boasting bright, rich, and warm tones, these 4 premium oil paints deliver a soft, lustrous finish that strikes the perfect balance between dynamic color and atmospheric effects.
Elevate Your Creative Tool Kit.
Mediums, Additives & Grounds. Williamsburg is proud to offer a tailored selection of painting mediums and grounds to help prepare, modify, and elevate your painting practice.
A range of products for extending and modifying the working properties of oil colors.
Traditional linseed oil-based preparations designed to create the ideal foundation for oil painting
Useful for modifying the working properties of oil colors.
GOLDEN Virtual Paint Mixer for Artists
GOLDEN MXR helps artists turn color inspiration into accurate, repeatable paint mixtures faster and with less waste. Available for Williamsburg Oils and GOLDEN Acrylics
- Reduce guesswork, wasted paint, and material costs.
- Save, refine, and share repeatable color recipes.
- Match colors from photos, RGB, or CMYK values virtually.
- Create accurate acrylic and oil paint formulas before mixing in the studio.
- Build and save custom palettes using the colors you already own.
- Instantly explore tints, complements, and color variations.
Artist Oil Colors — Technical Specs
Key Features
- Distinctive textures and working properties, with variations in grind and viscosity that reflect the character of each pigment
- Read about our Palette of Textures here
- Pigments ground in pure, premium alkali-refined linseed oil for exceptional color and handling
- Produced in small batches for rigorous quality control and consistency
- Every color is tested to ASTM lightfastness standards and Williamsburg's own in-house protocols
- High pigment loads deliver greater coverage, longer-lasting tubes, cleaner color mixing, and more luminous glazes
- Made with simple, purposeful ingredients with no fillers, extenders, opacifiers, or dyes. Additives are only used when necessary to optimize texture, stability, and drying time.
- Compatible with other oil color brands and mediums
Decoding the Label
We make it easy to know exactly what is inside each container of Williamsburg artist oil paints by what we put on the outside.
Hand-Painted Swatch - Every tube of Williamsburg Oil Color features a hand-painted swatch, giving artists an authentic preview of the color before it reaches the palette. More than just hue, it reveals the pigment's true character, including its sheen, texture, opacity, and handling qualities.
Pigments – The Color Index Name of the pigment(s) used in each color are clearly listed.
Lightfastness – We go beyond industry standards in testing colors to measure their resistance to fading when exposed to UV light.
Grind- Williamsburg paints are grouped into four texture categories based on pigment characteristics and milling method.
Opacity - An opacity symbol quickly designates the level of transparency/opacity of each color.
Application
- Modify with any ratio of oil medium. At high medium ratios, layers should be thin to mitigate wrinkling and yellowing.
- Dilute with odorless mineral spirits or turpentine.
- Thick applications can wrinkle upon drying and remain soft inside for years. For predictable results, apply several thin layers rather than a single thick layer.
- When layering oil paints, use less medium in lower layers and more medium in upper layers. This concept is often referred to as “fat over lean.”
- If mediums and/or colors with a variety of dry times are used, keep fast-drying materials in lower layers and slow-drying materials in upper layers.
- We do not recommend applying oil paints from any brand over glossy acrylics from any brand. See this article for more information.
Clean Up
- Wash hands after use with soapy, warm water.
- Brushes can be cleaned with a solvent-free method or with solvent to remove most paint from bristles. Follow with soap and warm water wash to remove remaining color.
- Consult with local authorities for approved methods of disposal and review our page Disposing of Painting Wastes
Storage
- Store paints in a dry location at stable temperature (~72°F/22°C). Avoid repeated freezing/thawing or extended exposure to temperatures exceeding 120°F (49°C).
- Minimize air intrusion by keeping container openings clean and fully closed.
- See our article about tube care techniques.
Handling and Transportation of Artwork
- Oil paintings should be fully cured before shipping.
- Employ standard conservation protocols during transit and storage to prevent incidental or prolonged surface contact. Ideally, nothing should touch the surface of the painting.
- If required, use silicone release paper or polyethylene sheeting to temporarily protect the surface of the work.
- Apply protective varnishes or topcoats as required by display conditions or aesthetic preference.
- Avoid rolling canvases or excessive handling of flexible works.
Technical Information
- Vehicle: Oil
- Paint Additives – when necessary, the following additives are used to enhance stability and dry-time of certain colors
- Calcium carbonate
- Barium sulfate
- Cobalt/Manganese Drier
- Beeswax
- Opacity: Varies by pigment type
- Permanence: Excellent to Very Good, except fluorescent colors
More Information (Links to Technical Just Paint Articles)
Videos, articles, and resources to help you get more out of Colors.
Williamsburg Oil Colors Overview
Getting the proper pigment is just the beginning. So much of the quality of oil paint is in the grinding. Each color is ground to enhance the beauty and luminosity specific to that particular pigment. Some colors will feel slightly gritty; others extremely smooth. Our Cerulean Blue will have a beautiful velvet, light-absorbing surface with an extremely strong covering power; our Siennas will often be chunky or gritty to allow light to travel through the vehicle, exposing rich golden or mahogany undertones instead of just heavy, dull browns. Pigments are ground in pure, premium, alkali-refined linseed oil and made in batches no larger than eight gallons at a time. This gives us total control over the product, much like the late nineteenth-century French color makers. All the materials are hand measured, and every ounce of paint is scrutinized. The paint is packed in 37 ml and 150 ml non-reactive aluminum tubes. Larger quantities of paint are packed in aluminum cans using only the purest materials. Williamsburg Artist Oil Colors are used by the world's finest artists whose work can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MOMA in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and the Beaubourg in Paris.
Painting with Williamsburg Neutral Grays
Check your local retailer for Williamsburg New Neutral Gray Set based on the Munsell Color System, helps you adjust value and chroma of any color without altering hue. Take a quick look at the creation and use of neutral gray colors within the Williamsburg palette and explore neutralizing colors while preserving value using the Munsell color system as well Grisaille, the practice of underpainting in grayscale then applying color glazes. Find the Munsell data for every color in the Williamsburg palette here.
Go deep into the Earth (colors)
We will take you through the extensive palette of earth colors offered in Williamsburg Oil paints, breaking down the differences between natural, mined pigments, and colors that have been synthesized. Explore the texture, transparency and utility of these colors in your painting! The drying time chart referenced in this video can be found here: https://goldenhub.goldenpaints.com/storage/uploads/williamsburg-drytime-chart-091818.pdf For a listing of all our colors categorized by their relative grind (very fine to coarse) see this list from our website: https://goldenhub.goldenpaints.com/storage/uploads/grind-category-pdf-1.pdf
The Value of Painting with Neutral Grays
Grays can be used to desaturate colors and can also be used to create a grisaille as an underpainting.
Revisiting Oils Over Acrylics
Updating the use of oils over acrylics with recent testing from the GOLDEN laboratory.
Williamsburg Alkyd Resin and Extender Medium
The why and how of using Mediums with your Williamsburg Oils.
Williamsburg Wax Medium
Wax Medium is a carefully melted and blended combination of linseed oil, bleached beeswax and dammar crystals.
The Subtle Differences of Williamsburg Whites
A guided comparison of Williamsburg Oils' seven whites (Titanium, Flake, Zinc, and their variants), breaking down each one's tinting strength, opacity, warmth, and drying time to help you pick the right white for your palette.
The GOLDEN Commitment to Product Safety
At GOLDEN, your safety is as important to us as the quality and performance of our products. We are committed to developing professional artist materials that meet high standards for both artistic excellence and responsible use. Our products undergo careful evaluation, and we follow established industry guidelines for toxicological assessment and product labeling to help ensure artists have accurate, reliable safety information.
We believe transparency is essential. That's why we provide comprehensive Safety Data Sheets (SDS), clear labeling, and easy access to health and safety resources that help artists understand how to handle, store, and use our materials responsibly.
Our Environmental Health & Safety team continuously works to evaluate potential risks, support compliance, and provide guidance that promotes safe studio practices.
Our goal is to empower artists to create with confidence, knowing that product safety, environmental stewardship, and customer well-being remain central to everything we do.
National Poison Control
Phone: 1-800-222-1222
This will route your call to a local poison control center based on the area code and exchange of the caller. If the victim has collapsed or is not breathing, call 911.
Safety Data Sheets
Standardized documents covering hazards, safe handling, first aid, and emergency procedures.
Wastewater Treatment & Management at Golden Artist Colors
Behind every tube of paint is a sustainability story: discover how GOLDEN recycles thousands of gallons of water through innovative wastewater management. Wastewater reclamation at Golden Artist Colors
Additional Resources
Williamsburg 8 Landscape Colors Set
An excellent outdoor palette that allows artists to produce the wide variety of hues, shades, and tints encountered in nature.
Williamsburg Mixing Colors Set
This balanced selection of colors allows artists to mix an extensive range with a limited palette.
Williamsburg Fluorescent Colors Set
Unleashing the maximum intensity of fluorescent oil colors, each stroke radiates vibrancy like never before.
Williamsburg Iridescent Colors Set
Unlock a realm of artistic expression with Williamsburg Artist Oil Iridescent Colors.
Williamsburg Bright Colors Set
Transform your paintings with the brilliance of light value colors that shine with a fresh, modern flair.
Williamsburg Neutral Gray Set
The Williamsburg Neutral Grays set allows artists to create full-value grisaille paintings with the addition of black and white. Color can then be applied to the grisaille, either full strength or as desaturated color after mixing them with these grays.