A computer ink on paper drawing of an aerial view of a cube split into eight floating blocks. Each block is comprised of 49 microcubes. Each cube and is graded in color creating a three dimensional color chart. The cube at the leftmost bottom corner red to orange, the one above yellow to green. The cube at the bottom next to the red to orange cube is pink to violet, the one above is white with tinges of pink and blue. The cube in the right most bottom corner is deep blue to violet, the one above cyan to bright blue and the one beside it light green to dark green. Black text at the bottom details author, title and date.

There is one other image of this object. See our image rights statement.

See more objects with the tag digital, ombre, color gradation, computer design.

Object Timeline

1980	Work on this object began.
1981	We acquired this object.
2015	We photographed this object.
2017	We photographed this object.
2018	We exhibited this object.
2024	You found it!

Drawing, The Chromo Cube

This is a Drawing. It is dated 1980 and we acquired it in 1981. Its medium is computer ink plotter print on paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

The Chromo Cube was designed to showcase the capabilities of the software Color to apply color gradients to a 3-D rendering. The software could create smooth color transitions by incrementally adjusting the dot density; the program also allowed for up to 25 different dot patterns.

It is credited Gift of Beck & Jung.

A computer ink on paper poster of a blue sky with wispy clouds on which a three dimensional cube floats in the bottom right corner. The cube is made up of sixteen square gridded panels, each panel in various chromatic colors so that when viewed all together it represents a gradient of the color spectrum. The panels at the back in the red, orange and violet spectrum, the ones at the front in the yellow and white spectrum, the ones at the bottom in the green and blue spectrum.

Poster, Chrome Cube
computer ink plotter print on paper.
Gift of Holger Backstrom and Bo Ljundberg.
1985-9-1

Sidewall, Aurora Ray
digital print on linen-textured vinyl.
Gift of Calico Wallpaper.
2015-24-2

Horizontal rectangular print with fifty colorful squares arranged in a grid five squares high by ten squares wide. The primary color shifts in a gradient from yellow filling the squares at left to red at right. Each square is filled with thin vertical lines in a contrasting color shifting from blue to green to yellow from top to bottom and bordered in that same color. Thin white lines fill the spaces in between the squares and a thick white border at top and bottom. Faint handwritten words in pencil at lower right.

Print, League of Women Voters
screenprint on paper.
Gift of Joshua Mack.
1995-38-8

Our curators have highlighted 4 objects that are related to this one. Here are three of them, selected at random:

Textile, Zambra
polyester.
1988-111-11

A pink cord necklace with two rectangular pendant forms, one with two colored boxes and the other having three colored boxes. The pendants are attached to the cord using strips of sewn colored material through the inside of the boxes' negative space. The boxes are sewn together with thread and there are uncut pieces that are still attached.The boxes look as if they are three dimensional on the face because there are diagonal lines that begin from the corners to the center and they are colored with the same hue on opposite sides. The finish is dull.

Spaces Necklace, 2015
H x W x D: 54 × 12.4 × 2.7 cm (21 1/4 × 4 7/8 × 1 1/16 in.).
Promised gift to the Susan Grant Lewin Collection, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian....
7067.138.2016

Poster, Aeron Chair
digital print and screenprint on paper.
Gift of Herman Miller.
2014-19-1

Its dimensions are

21.1 × 30.2 cm (8 5/16 × 11 7/8 in.)

It is inscribed

Inscribed in pen and black ink, lower left: Wissler; lower center: Original computer ink plot; lower right: Beck: Jung 1980

Cite this object as

Drawing, The Chromo Cube; computer ink plotter print on paper; 21.1 × 30.2 cm (8 5/16 × 11 7/8 in.); Gift of Beck & Jung; 1981-19-1

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color.

Short URL http://cprhw.tt/o/2DpXz/
Accession Number 1981-19-1
Object ID 18616235