Lillian Schwartz

January 1, 1927

Lillian Schwartz is a pioneer in the field of computer animation. In the early 1970s, she became the official artist in residence at AT&T Bell Laboratories, IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratory and at Lucent Technologies Bell Labs Innovations where she would experiment with early computer graphics programs to create short works of film art. After studying traditional free-hand drawing while a nursing student at the University of Cincinnati, Schwartz became interested in incorporating technology into her artwork. Along with computer scientist Ken Knowlton, she helped create the image-generating programming language EXPLOR, with which she created many of her works in the mid to late '70s. In addition to her animation, Schwartz has also done research in the field of using computers to analyse the working methods of traditional artists such as Picasso, Matisse and Da Vinci by amassing large databases of their colour palettes and structures within their art. (from: http://www.undergroundfilmjournal.com/tag/lillian-schwartz/)