Artist William A. Newman

was going to be affected by the computer,” he says. “From the very beginning, David and I believed the computer could be the most important tool an artist ever had. We still do.

Not all of their colleagues and friends shared that faith. “The first computer lab at the Corcoran was crammed into a room under a staircase,” Adamson recalls. “One day, I was working there, amidst this jumble of equipment, and Steve Szabo from the photography department came by, put his head in, and just started laughing. He thought we were crazy. A lot of people did.”

That didn’t bother him or Newman. By 1985, Newman was driven by a desire to be the first artist to get an image from the computer onto a canvas and then to paint on it. He worked with early digitizing programs, such as MAGIC, short for Macintosh Graphics Input Controller, and MacScan. These programs would allow Newman to scan his videotaped models into the computer, print out the image, and transfer it to canvas, eliminating the need for the camera obscura he had used to project figures on the fabric.

The digitizing technology even provided the tongue-in-cheek title of Newman’s solo show, “Have Faith in Magic,” presented in September 1985 at the gallery that David Adamson had opened in downtown Washington. One of the highlights of that exhibition was Her (pl. 6), an oil painting that seamlessly combines Newman’s semi-autobiographical figuration with computer-generated and computer-altered imagery. Newman added by hand the art ingredient most lacking in the first Mac: color. A few years later, the technology caught up with the artists. “We absolutely took MacPaint to its limits,” Adamson says. “We worked with people who developed the first digital printers and digital scanners. Apple gave us their first digital printer to try out. By the late ’80s, we were working with photographic color, and we pulled it all into visual art.”

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“I was reluctant to accept what might happen,” Newman says. “But finally I decided if it was going to continue, I’d better be prepared. That stimulated my interest in computers. From the very beginning, I saw the Mac as something I could use to help me paint. The timing was just so exquisitely perfect. I was losing something in terms of physical ability, but I was gaining it back with the computer.”

Once convinced that the Mac was a great new tool for artists, Newman and Adamson approached the Corcoran School about teaching a computer course. The administration was interested, but finding money to buy the computers was a problem. There was no budget for Macs. Over the summer, Adamson told Guy Kawaski, Apple’s legendary software chief and marketing evangelist, that he needed help starting a computer department at the Corcoran. Kawasaki said the company didn’t do such things. A short time later, ten Macs in boxes arrived at the school. No one knew who had sent them. When Adamson called to say thank you, Apple disavowed any involvement. He remains convinced that Kawasaki sent them.

In the autumn of 1984, equipped with the new Macs, the Corcoran introduced a computer class taught jointly by Adamson and Newman. Initially, they found themselves learning as much as their students. “In the beginning, I needed David to help me with everything on the computer,” Newman says. “He made me a co-founder of the computer department, although he was the force. As far as I know, we were the first art school in the world to teach computers for fine art and graphic art.”

After learning how to use the Mac, Adamson and Newman began pushing the machine to its limits, seeking ways to combine the evolving technologies of photography, video, and computers with more traditional visual art forms such as painting, drawing, and printmaking. Newman was so enamored of the technology that he stopped teaching drawing.“I felt everything in art in the future ”