Ralph Stout graduated from Bucknell University in 1960 with a degree in mathematics and an interest in the visual arts. When a brief attempt to pursue a career as a fine artist came to grief, he joined ACT, a computer software firm and remained there for 18 years. Eventually, he and some others left the company to build TAS, an animation system for small computers. When NTT bought TAS, Stout turned his attention to other interests, notably music synthesis and voice compression. As luck would have it, the private placement memorandum for his fledgling music synthesizer company went out days before the calamitous 1987 stock market crash. With that avenue of endeavor closed for the foreseeable future, he joined Information Builders, a software vendor based in New York city and remained there for many years. Despite the demands of this series of highly technical day jobs, Stout continued to find time for painting and drawing, and when the opportunity finally arose to devote all his time to these pursuits, he jumped on to it. Over the past several years, Stout has become an accomplished abstractionist. His paintings on canvas, which often exploit the visual tension between the putative foreground and the background of an image, tend to be colorful and hard-edged. His works on paper reveal an accomplished draughtsman's attitude toward abstract form.

Artist Statement:

"I have been, in turn, a lapsed graduate student in mathematics, a computer programmer and consultant, an inventor (see, for example, United States Patent 5590319), the president of a computer animation company, the chief scientist of a software firm, and a participant in at least two ill-fated high-tech startup ventures. The purpose of my daytime activities over the years has been to support my family while pursuing a nocturnal career as a painter and a photographer, and I have succeeded after a fashion. But, while I have always managed to set aside a certain amount of time for painting and photography, I have never had the time to bring my work to the attention of others. That is what I am now trying to do.

I graduated from Bucknell University in 1960 with a degree in Mathematics and went from there to Educational Testing Service, where I learned to program computers. In 1961, I left ETS, hoping to pursue an advanced degree in mathematics. Following a one-year stint as a graduate student at NYU, I dropped out, hoping, this time, to become a painter. Things might have turned out differ¬ntly had I not been drafted at that point. Perhaps, but when I got out of the army in 1963, I went to work for Advanced Computer Techniques Corporation, a tiny computer consulting firm, and never looked back. ACT flourished, particularly in Europe, and I soon found myself in Paris, leading a develop¬mental project in France for Compagnie des Machines Bull. I did not return for five years.

I came back to the US, and ACT, in 1975 and remained there until 1982 when the company founder and I left to form a new venture we decided to call LSInc. LSInc made technical history by building the first full-featured animation system for personal computers but it was never a financial success. NTT bought us out in 1986 and, as part of the deal, my partner left to live in Japan. I spent three tough years doing a variety of consulting jobs while trying in vain to raise money to build a new music synthesizer chip. In 1989, I joined Information Builders, a software vendor specializing in business intelligence and enterprise reporting and remained there until April of 2006.

My shadow career, as a painter and photographer, has been far less eventful. I began painting as an undergraduate at Bucknell. In the late sixties, at the urging of Wolf Von Dem Bussche, a photo¬grapher friend, I took up photography. I find I have little to say about either of these activities. It’s best, I think, to let my work speak for itself."