Grace C. Hertlein

Grace C. Hertlein was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1918. She studied at the Cleveland School of Art and Western Reserve University before beginning her career as an illustrator and art director in the 1940s and 50s. She moved fluidly between commercial and fine art worlds, gaining early recognition for her strong graphic sensibility and command of composition.

By the early 1970s, Hertlein began experimenting with computers, describing her practice as “painting with light instead of pigment.” She embraced the medium’s unpredictability, generating hybrid forms that merged geometry with organic life. Her Creation series introduced rhythmic compositions of beasts, plants, and sun-like shapes, often drawn from nature, printed using plotters, and adapted on materials like acetate, foil, and canvas. Works like Beasts in the Field ,1979, reflect this layered, intuitive process, combining randomized botanical patterns with a Picasso-inspired form. She was drawn to landscapes, memory, and the emotional potential of machine-generated imagery. Her vision extended beyond the fine arts, in a 1977 statement, she suggested that computer-aided weaving might spark “the next industrial revolution,” showing how deeply she believed in the creative potential of digital systems.

In addition to her artistic practice, Hertlein served for over a decade as Art Editor of Computers and Automation, the first magazine focused on digital art. She helped shape early discourse around the medium, featuring other pioneering artists while documenting her own experiments. Her work was included in several exhibitions during the 1970s and 80s, including shows at SIGGRAPH and the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany. Hertlein collected a wide range of early computer-generated prints from many pioneering artists. A selection from her archive was featured in Sotheby’s 2023 History of Science & Technology sale, highlighting her role in preserving the roots of computer art. She passed away in 1994.