Christopher Rush

Christopher "Chris" Rush was one of the original 25 Magic: The Gathering artists. He passed away on February 10, 2016.

Career
As a staffer at Wizards of the Coast, he worked as a designer on many projects. Most notably Magic, Netrunner and Pokemon. As such, he designed and colored the Magic card back with Jesper Myrfors, and he also designed the original mana symbols.

A an artist, Rush has painted cards in many sets. His artistic work is typically easy to pick out as it bears a strong resemblance to comic book artwork featuring recognizable lines and simple backgrounds. He has worked on many extremely notable cards and has the distinction of working on three of the most expensive cards in the game:, Shichifukujin Dragon, and 1996 World Champion. Chris was initially a Wizards of the Coast staff member and worked on many of their other products including Pokemon and Netrunner. In 1999, he left Wizards to work as a freelance artist living in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. He is also the person that suggested that basic lands could be represented by full art cards.

In 1999 He left Wizards to pursue a freelance career in illustration and design, working on conceptual art for computer games.

In 2006, Christopher was one of several retro artists brought back during Time Spiral to recapture the early feel of the game. Unfortunately he didn't continue after Time Spiral, and despite his popularity remained fairly reclusive.