Alvy Ray Smith Develops PAINT

From Smith’s 1978 Technical Memo No. 7 at the New York Institute of Technology’s Computer Graphics Lab: “Paint is a menu-driven computer program for handpainting two-dimensional images in full color. It is a highly interactive software package with which a human artist may employ the power of a digital computer to compose paintings which are entirely of [their] own creation.” Paint would go on to serve as a prototype for subsequent graphic design software. As one of the earliest software tools for digital painting, it revolutionized the artistic process by providing artists with a digital canvas and a range of tools for creating and manipulating images. Paint allowed artists to explore new possibilities for expression, enabling them to experiment with color, texture and composition in ways that were not previously achievable. Paint’s user-friendly interface and intuitive controls democratized digital art creation, opening the doors for artists to embrace the potential of digital tools and techniques in generative art.