The Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection (Spalter Digital), is one of the world’s largest private collections of early computer art, comprising works from the second half of the twentieth century to present day. Spalter Digital, which focuses primarily on plotter drawings, includes other 2D media as well as sculpture and 16mm film, is home to major and iconic examples from key artists in the field.
Spalter Digital has loaned artwork and/or images to the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Venice Biennale, the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (California), The Pompidou (Paris), The Tate (London), The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Jeu de Paume (Paris), The Buffalo AKG Art Museum (Buffalo, NY), the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa (Venice), the Daelim Museum (Seoul), among others.
In 2023, The Fleet Library at RISD created the Anne, Michael, and Amelia Spalter Computer Art Collection Library; a world-class research and reference collection for the study of the foundational period of computer, algorithmic and generative art, 1965-2000.
Offering public access to the collection is a central principle of Anne, Michael and Amelia Spalter’s dedication to advancing the digital arts. We welcome you to engage this site as a vital part of the birth, evolution and revolution of the digital arts.
A note for viewers:
The Algorithmic Eye: An Introduction to the Spalter Legacy
The Ghost in the Machine:
For centuries, the “artist’s hand” was the ultimate arbiter of value in the fine arts. The physical connection between the painter’s brush and the canvas was seen as the direct conduit of human soul and intention. In the early 1960s, a radical group of mathematicians, engineers, and philosophers—now known as the Pioneers—severed that connection. They traded the brush for the punch card and the easel for the mainframe, initiating a revolution that many at the time refused to call “art.”
The Spalter Digital Art Collection stands as the definitive archive of this defiance. It captures the moment when the computer ceased to be a mere calculator and became a collaborator.
The 1% Disorder: Beyond Automation:
To the uninitiated, “computer art” suggests a sterile automation—the machine doing the work for the human. The Spalter Collection proves the opposite. Through the works of Vera Molnar, we see the “1% Disorder”: the intentional injection of randomness into a logical system to mimic the beautiful imperfections of the natural world.
When Frieder Nake or Manfred Mohr wrote code in the 1960s, they weren’t looking for the computer to give them an answer; they were looking for the computer to propose a visual logic they hadn’t yet imagined. This was the birth of Generative Art. The artist became a “curator of possibilities,” writing a set of rules (an algorithm) and then selecting the most resonant output from the infinite variations the machine produced.
The Physicality of Code:
A common misconception among museum-goers is that early digital art was “virtual.” On the contrary, the Spalter Collection is a deeply tactile history. Before high-resolution screens existed, these artists utilized Pen Plotters—robotic devices that moved a physical technical pen across paper.
These works carry the unique “jitter” of the machine and the bleeding of ink, bridging the gap between the digital “thought” and the physical “object.” Artists like Desmond Paul Henry even repurposed World War II bombsight computers, turning instruments of destruction into engines of chaotic, curvilinear beauty.
The Digital Renaissance:
For the art enthusiast of today, digital tools like Photoshop or Generative AI are ubiquitous. However, understanding the Spalter Collection is essential for grasping the “DNA” of our modern visual culture. These pioneers laid the groundwork for everything from CGI in cinema to the user interfaces on our phones to ultimately changing the history of art. They were the first to ask the heavy questions:
• Can a machine be creative?
• Who is the author: the programmer or the program?
• What is the aesthetic value of a mathematical formula?
A New Way of Seeing:
As you move through this collection, we invite you to look past the “technology” and see the logic of beauty. The Spalter Collection is a testament to human curiosity—a reminder that even in the most rigid of environments (the cold, binary world of the early mainframe), the human spirit will always find a way to dance.
Anne Spalter is a leading digital artist, creating dystopian landscapes with AI and other technological tools. Her hope is that after seeing her art you will perceive and appreciate contemporary systems of human movement, travel, management, and control in new ways.
Spalter’s surreal art creates a darkly mesmerizing sci-fi experience, mixing media such as digital videos, AI, crypto art, drawing, painting, weaving, and even gigantic inflatables. Spalter’s apocalyptic view of the world is informed by her frequent travels, knowledge of sci-fi novels, movies, and the collective unconscious. When people explore her post-apocalyptic installations, they wander through an intense atmosphere filled with high waves, damaged spaceships, and flaming fires. All these are portrayed with glowing colors and pulsing patterns.
Spalter has been actively working in digital art for decades; she established the first digital fine arts courses at Brown University and RISD during the 90s, and wrote The Computer in the Visual Arts textbook which is used internationally. Together with Michael Spalter she oversees Spalter Digital, one of the largest private collections of early computer art.
This past year she was part of MASS MoCA’s alumni residency; named as one of the 50 most important crypto artists by Rizzoli; participated in the SPRING/BREAK Art Show NYC and the CADAF Art Fair (Nov 11-13); and released RABBIT TAKEOVER, an NFT project that sold out in five minutes. Her 20-minute NFT video piece The Bell Machine was acquired by the Buffalo AKG Museum in December 2022.
Spalter’s works can be found in many private collections and museums such as The Victoria and Albert, The AKG Buffalo Art Museum, The RISD Museum, and The Museum of CryptoArt, the Thoma Collection, and the Progressive Collection. Her NFTs have been sold at auction through Sotheby’s and Phillips and featured in the New York Times. She lectures frequently on digital art practice, theory and the market.
Michael Spalter was the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) from 2011 to January 2023.
He was also on the inaugural advisory boards of Harvard University’s Cultural Enterprise initiative, the Nantucket Project and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Digital Art Acquisition Committee. He also served as a Trustee of the International Council of the Louvre for seven years Co-Chairing its first permanent endowment.
All works that appear on the Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection website are original works created by the artists and are therefore copyrighted by the artists.
No image or information displayed on this website may be reproduced, retransmitted, or copied (other than for the purposes of fair dealing, as defined by the Copyright Act of 1968) without the expressed written permission of Anne or Michael Spalter. Any infringement of the Copyright Act of 1968 and its amendments may be subject to legal action.
Fair Use Act Disclaimer: This site is for educational purposes only.
Fair Use Copyright Disclaimer: Under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
Fair Use Definition: Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, or scholarship. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work under a four-factor balancing test.