Earlier than Photoshop there was… Quantel Paintbox? By Ian Dean printed 20 Might 23 Design This misplaced ’80s digital artwork tech nonetheless has its followers.

4 months ago 2 min read

Photoshop is the mainstay of everybody’s digital artwork toolkit however earlier than Adobe’s app dominated every little thing there was Quantel Paintbox. It’s possible you’ll not have heard of it, however Paintbox had some very well-known followers again within the Nineteen Eighties, and now its coming again, type of.

Artists reminiscent of Keith Haring, Larry Rivers and Jennifer Bartlett all experimented with Quantel Paintbox within the Nineteen Eighties. Earlier than David Hockeny discovered iPad artwork was a satisfying option to sketch anyplace, he was splashing pixels round in Quantel’s experimental digital portray tech – not an app as such, Paintbox was a chunky standalone pc.

This forgotten digital artwork tech is ready to make a return, of kinds, as photographer Adrian Wilson has tracked down 20 artistic endeavors created on this obscure digital portray tech and can be displaying them on the exhibition from the Pc Arts Society known as ‘How Quantel’s Paintbox Modified Our World’, in Leicester this summer season.

“At $250,000 to purchase, or a minimal of $500 an hour to hire, Paintboxes have been the Rolls-Royce of pc graphics, and laborious to get entry to,” Wilson instructed Artnet Information, including: “It was this superb new factor that was revolutionary and thrilling, and launched a great deal of careers, mine included.”

Even if you happen to’re unfamiliar with Quantel Paintbox you’ll be able to’t keep away from the influence it had on Nineteen Eighties popular culture, with MTV changing into an enormous person to create graphic designs in addition to Paintboxes getting used to make numerous music movies of the period, together with Boy George’s ‘You Are My Heroin,’ directed by the well-known graphic designer Kiki Picasso.

Quantel spent tens of millions of {dollars} wooing well-known artists, together with Richard Hamilton and Sidney Nolan, to make use of its Paintbox within the hope of getting the tech into the palms of influential creatives. As Wilson instructed Artnet Information, “They knew that as their finish person, artists have been essential to their success”.

Sadly, Paintbox was destined to change into misplaced to historical past when Quantel did not uphold its patent infringement case in opposition to Adobe, which then noticed Photoshop change into the business mainstay for many digital artists. However the Paintbox legacy is clear, not simply by introducing the world to digital portray but in addition the tech all of us now come to like, from the most effective drawing tablets to the most effective iPad stylus pens.