Lillian Schwartz Archive at The Henry Ford Museum @ Hyperallergic
“I came to this collection as a fan of Lillian’s,” said Kristen Gallerneaux, curator of Communication and Information Technology at the Henry Ford Museum. “I remembered learning about Lillian Schwartz when I was in art school, and wondered where her archive is.” In November, Gallerneaux’s wondering bore fruit, as the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, announced the acquisition of the artist’s archive, comprised of over 5,000 items, including Schwartz’s artwork, personal papers, photographs, books, and more, spanning from her childhood into her late career.
“I came to this collection as a fan of Lillian’s,” said Kristen Gallerneaux, curator of Communication and Information Technology at the Henry Ford Museum. “I remembered learning about Lillian Schwartz when I was in art school, and wondered where her archive is.” In November, Gallerneaux’s wondering bore fruit, as the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, announced the acquisition of the artist’s archive, comprised of over 5,000 items, including Schwartz’s artwork, personal papers, photographs, books, and more, spanning from her childhood into her late career.
Lillian Schwartz, who is today 94, is a singular character for a number of reasons — not least as a pioneer in computer-assisted design, and one of few women working in tech in the mid-1960s. For a field that still struggles to maintain any kind of gender equity in its staffing demographics, Schwartz’s decades as a sort of artist-in-residence and consultant at AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey from 1969 to 2002 was a standalone accomplishment, let alone her work at the forefront of computer-generated art before desktops or the kind of software that makes it commonplace and accessible today.
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