Charles Csuri (July 4, 1922 – February 27, 2022), better known as Chuck Csuri, was an American artist and computer art pioneer, described by the '' Smithsonian'' magazine as the "father of

digital art Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various names ...

and

computer animation Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating animations. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both static scenes (still images) and dynamic images (moving images), while computer animation refe ...

Biography

Digital art

Csuri created his first digital art pieces in 1964, and was quickly recognized by the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

(MoMA) and the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group Graphics (ACM SIGGRAPH). In particular, his 1967 short film ''Hummingbird'', a collaboration with James Shaffer, is in MoMa's permanent collection as one of the earliest surviving examples of computer animation. Csuri taught for over forty years at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, and between 1971 and 1987 established a series of groundbreaking graphics research centers there: the Computer Graphics Research Group, the Ohio Supercomputer Graphics Project, and

Cranston/Csuri Productions Cranston/Csuri Productions (CCP) was an American computer animation company based in Columbus, Ohio. It was founded in 1981 by artist Chuck Csuri and investor Robert Cranston Kanuth to commercially exploit computer animation technology created by ...

, which spun off from the university in 1981 to become one of the world's first computer animation production companies. In 1987, these groups combined to form the Advanced Computing Center for Arts and Design (ACCAD), which remains in operation as of 2022. In 2000, Csuri received an Ohio Governor's Award for the Arts and Ohio State's Sullivant Medal, the institution's highest honor, in acknowledgement of his lifetime achievements. A retrospective exhibit of seventy of Csuri's artworks, titled ''Beyond Boundaries'', traveled to museums throughout Europe and Asia in 2010. Other notable works by Csuri include ''Random War'' (1967), ''Sine Curve Man'' (1967), ''Wondrous Spring'' (1992), ''Spinning'' (1994), ''A Happy Time'' (1996), ''Random War Pics'' (2013), ''Despair'' (2016), ''Doddle'' (2016), ''Old Age'' (2016), and ''ribFIG'' (2016).

College football career

Csuri attended Ohio State on a football scholarship. He became captain of their first national championship football team, and is in the

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...

as MVP in the 1942

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

. He was selected in the

1944 NFL Draft The 1944 National Football League Draft was held on April 19, 1944, at the Warwick Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With the first overall pick of the draft, the Boston Yanks selected quarterback Angelo Bertelli. Player selections Round ...

by the

Chicago Cardinals The professional American football team now known as the Arizona Cardinals previously played in Chicago, Illinois, as the Chicago Cardinals from 1898 to 1959 before relocating to St. Louis, Missouri, for the 1960 through 1987 seasons. Roots ca ...

(16th round, 154th overall pick), but declined the offer in order to serve in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Military service

Csuri served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946, receiving the

Bronze Star The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone. Wh ...

in 1945 for heroism in the

Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted fr ...

Teaching career

Csuri returned to Ohio State and completed his MA in art in 1948. In 1949, he joined the faculty of the Department of Art at the university. He became a full Professor of Art Education in 1978, a Professor of Computer Information Science in 1986, and Professor Emeritus in 1990.

Personal life

Csuri was born in Grant Town, West Virginia, on July 4, 1922, to parents from

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

. He grew up in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. He died in

Lakewood Ranch, Florida Lakewood Ranch is a planned community and census-designated place in southeastern Manatee County and northeastern Sarasota County, Florida, United States, consisting of approximately . It is part of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida Met ...

, on February 27, 2022, at the age of 99.

References

External links

*
Oral history interview with Charles A. Csuri
Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Csuri recounts his art education and explains his transition to computer graphics in the mid-1960s.
The Charles A. Csuri Project at the Ohio State University

Charles Csuri's profile at Siggraph
* Fitzsimmons, Kevin. "Gov. Taft recognizes OSU's Csuri as the state's best individual artist". OnCampus Online, Vol. 29, No. 18. https://web.archive.org/web/20110929232136/http://oncampus.osu.edu/v29n18/thisissue_6.html * Gold, Virginia. "ACM SIGGRAPH ANNOUNCES WINNER OF 2011 AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN DIGITAL ART". The Association for Computing Machinery, https://web.archive.org/web/20110927055828/http://accad.osu.edu/assets/files/Csuri_SIGGAward2011.pdf {{DEFAULTSORT:Csuri, Charles 1922 births 2022 deaths American digital artists Artists from West Virginia Computer graphics professionals Ohio State Buckeyes football players Ohio State University faculty United States Army personnel of World War II United States Army soldiers People from Marion County, West Virginia Military personnel from West Virginia