String art might be seen as somewhat childish. It has been used as something that children can play with to produce interesting patterns. However, it does have a more serious artistic pedigree. It was used by Naum Gabo (1890-1977) who used nylon thread and fishing line over a perspex frame. Some of his work can be found at the Tate Gallery. See, for example, Linear Construction No.1 (1942-3).
Although the curves produced by straight lines are now named after Pierre Bézier (1910-1999), Gabo's work obviously predates his association with these curves which only dates from the early 1960s. (Whatismore, Paul de Casteljau (1930- ) also seems to have had priority over Bézier in terms of having produced the original algorithms still used to produce these curves mathematically.)
