This New Jersey Art Store Has The Largest And Oldest Collection Of Art Supplies In The Country

Open the door and suddenly you want to paint, sketch, sculpt, and maybe even frame your grocery list.

It is a creative wonderland with supplies for every possible medium.

The company has been fueling artists since the early 1900s, making it one of the oldest and largest art supply providers in the country.

This particular location sits right off a major highway and serves everyone from school kids with crayons to gallery-represented professionals.

The staff is famously knowledgeable and always ready to help you find exactly what you need, whether it is a specific brush or a brand new medium to explore.

There is even a monthly rotating gallery featuring local artists.

New Jersey has a creative powerhouse hiding right on the highway.

A Store Born From Over a Century of Art History

Some stores feel like they just appeared overnight. Blick Art Materials is absolutely not one of them.

Founded in 1911 as a mail-order business, this company has been serving artists for well over a century, making it one of the oldest and largest art supply retailers in the entire United States.

The Paramus location opened in 2011 as the company’s 32nd retail store and its very first in New Jersey. That milestone alone says a lot about how much this brand has grown while staying true to what artists actually need.

Walking through the store, you can almost feel that long history woven into every shelf. The depth of the product selection is not something you stumble upon at a typical craft chain.

It reflects decades of understanding what painters, sculptors, illustrators, and students truly want from an art supply shop.

Paint Lovers, This Section Is Your Happy Place

If paint is your primary medium, prepare yourself. The paint section at this Paramus store is genuinely one of the most well-stocked you’ll find anywhere in the region.

Tubes and bottles in every brand, finish, and color imaginable are organized with a satisfying level of care that makes browsing feel like a pleasure rather than a chore.

Copic acrylics, Chartpak markers, oil paints, and specialty lines sit alongside more accessible student-grade options, so whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out, there’s something here priced for your budget.

The staff can help you understand the differences between brands and formulations, which is genuinely useful when you’re standing in front of twenty versions of the same color.

Spring sales and regular promotions make stocking up even more satisfying. Grabbing a new set of colors here feels less like shopping and more like a creative investment.

You leave with pigments and possibilities, which is honestly the best kind of purchase.

Drawing and Sketching Supplies That Cover Every Style

Drawing is where so many artistic journeys begin, and this store respects that deeply. The drawing and sketching section feels like it was built by someone who actually draws every single day.

Pencils ranging from the softest 9B to the hardest 9H stand in rows, while charcoal, conte crayons, and pastel sets occupy their own thoughtfully organized spaces nearby.

Sketchbooks come in an impressive range of sizes, paper weights, and bindings. Whether you prefer a tiny pocket journal for quick studies or a large hardbound pad for detailed work, the options here make it easy to find exactly what fits your practice.

Specialty papers for ink and marker work add even more depth to the selection.

For anyone focused on illustration, the marker wall alone is worth the trip. Dozens of brands and hundreds of individual colors are available, including popular choices for black book art and urban sketching.

Finding the right tool here feels less like searching and more like discovering.

The Sheer Scale of the Product Selection Will Surprise You

There is something genuinely thrilling about walking into a store where the selection feels almost overwhelming in the best possible way.

The Paramus Blick location was specifically noted at its opening for offering the largest product assortment in the northern New Jersey area, and that reputation has clearly held up over the years.

Paints in every medium imaginable line the shelves, from oils and acrylics to watercolors and gouache. Pencils, charcoal, pastels, markers, and inks each have their own generous sections.

Then there are the canvases, sketchbooks, and drawing pads stacked in sizes you’d never find at a general craft store.

The variety doesn’t stop at traditional fine art supplies either. Airbrushes, clay and modeling materials, printmaking tools, and a solid selection of kids’ craft supplies all share space here.

It’s the kind of store where you come in for one thing and leave having discovered three others you absolutely cannot live without.

An In-Store Gallery That Celebrates Local Artists

Most art supply stores are purely transactional spaces. Blick in Paramus decided to be something a bit more meaningful.

The store hosts an in-store gallery that rotates monthly, featuring the work of a different local or regional artist each time, which adds a genuinely cultural dimension to what is otherwise a retail environment.

Walking past shelves of supplies and then turning a corner to find original paintings or prints on display creates a surprisingly moving experience. It connects the tools being sold to the actual creative output those tools can produce.

It’s a quiet reminder of what all this stuff is actually for.

For local artists, this gallery represents a real opportunity to share their work with a community of fellow creatives who visit regularly. For shoppers, it provides a rotating source of inspiration that changes every few weeks.

The gallery transforms each visit into something slightly different from the last, giving you a reason to keep coming back beyond just restocking supplies.

Serving Everyone From Students to Seasoned Professionals

One of the most impressive things about this store is how well it serves such a wide range of people. Students from Bergen Community College and Montclair State University shop here regularly, picking up supplies for coursework and personal projects.

Alongside them, professional artists and longtime enthusiasts browse the same aisles looking for specialty items they can’t find elsewhere.

The product range reflects this diversity beautifully. Budget-friendly student-grade supplies share shelf space with professional-quality materials, so nobody feels priced out or underserved.

That balance is harder to achieve than it sounds, and Blick pulls it off without making either group feel like an afterthought.

Even complete beginners feel welcome here. The store layout is clean and organized enough that navigating it doesn’t feel intimidating, even if you’ve never bought art supplies before.

Staff members are consistently praised for being approachable and genuinely knowledgeable, which makes a real difference when you’re not sure what you need and just want honest guidance.

Specialty Items You Simply Won’t Find Elsewhere in the Region

There’s a particular kind of satisfaction that comes from finally finding something you’ve been hunting for across multiple stores. Blick in Paramus delivers that feeling regularly.

Fountain pens, wax seals, airbrush kits, and printmaking supplies all live here, tucked into sections that reward curious shoppers willing to explore beyond the obvious.

For anyone who has driven from New York or searched endlessly online just to see how a color actually looks on paper, this store is a genuine solution.

The ability to physically compare materials before buying is something that online shopping simply cannot replicate, and the Paramus location makes the most of that advantage with a broad and carefully curated inventory.

Customers have traveled from across the tri-state area specifically for items they couldn’t locate closer to home. That kind of drawing power speaks to the store’s reputation as a true destination for serious artists.

It’s not just a supply shop, it’s a resource, and that distinction matters enormously to the creative community it serves.

A Rewards Program That Actually Makes Sense for Artists

Loyalty programs at retail stores can feel like a chore, but the free rewards account at Blick is one that actually makes sense to sign up for.

Staff members at the Paramus location have been praised for proactively helping customers enroll at checkout, and the process is genuinely quick and painless.

No lengthy forms, no complicated steps.

The benefits include access to discounts and promotional pricing that can add up meaningfully over time, especially if you’re the kind of person who visits regularly or buys supplies in bulk for classes and projects.

Being notified about sales before they end has saved more than a few shoppers a significant amount on items they were already planning to purchase.

For students especially, those savings matter. Art supplies are not cheap, and every discount on brushes, paints, or canvases goes directly back into the creative work.

The rewards program feels like the store’s way of acknowledging its most dedicated customers and giving something real back to the community that keeps it thriving.

Store Hours and Location Make It Easy to Plan a Visit

Planning a trip to Blick in Paramus is refreshingly straightforward. The store operates Monday through Saturday from 10 AM to 7 PM, giving you a solid window to browse without feeling rushed.

Whether you’re stopping in after work on a Tuesday or making a dedicated Saturday art supply run, the schedule accommodates most lifestyles without much rearranging.

The location inside 35 Plaza on East State Route 4 is easy to access by car, and the plaza offers parking without the stress of hunting for a spot.

Route 4 is one of the main commercial corridors in Bergen County, so getting there from most parts of northern New Jersey or even from New York is genuinely manageable.

Having a dedicated art supply destination this accessible in New Jersey is something the local creative community clearly appreciates. Before this store opened in 2011, artists in the area often had to travel considerably further or rely entirely on online ordering.

Now, a well-stocked, welcoming art supply haven sits right along one of the region’s busiest routes.

Why Blick Paramus Keeps Drawing People Back Again and Again

Repeat visits are the truest measure of a store’s worth, and Blick in Paramus earns them consistently. Customers return not just because the selection is excellent, but because the overall experience feels good from start to finish.

Clean, organized aisles, friendly and knowledgeable staff, fair pricing, and a rotating gallery all combine into something that feels more like a creative community hub than a standard retail stop.

One customer drove in from New York just to make this their regular Blick location of choice. Another described it as a hidden gem compared to bigger chain craft stores, praising the depth of selection for serious artists.

Stories like these repeat across dozens of visits and years of shopping, which says something genuine about the consistency of the experience.

Art supply shopping can be mundane or it can be genuinely exciting. At this Paramus location, it leans heavily toward the latter.

The combination of history, variety, and community makes it a destination worth visiting more than once, and for many artists in the region, it has simply become an essential part of the creative routine.

Address: 65 E. State Route 4, 35 Plaza #4, Paramus, NJ