American Scientist

Engineering and art are not incompatible. In fact, especially when characterized by the creative process of design, engineering can be more akin to art than it is to science. Before a new structure or machine can be committed to paper or pixels, it must first be conceived in the mind’s eye of the designer through a process that is as ineffable as that experienced by a writer sitting before a blank computer screen or a painter before an empty canvas. Thus it should not be wholly surprising that some engineers have turned into accomplished artists. Among them is Manierre Dawson, a civil engineer who was making abstract paintings as early as 1910, before Kandinsky and other better-known modern artists were. But perhaps the most celebrated engineer-turned-artist of the 20th century was Alexander Calder.