Each week we pay homage to a select "Original Creator," an iconic artist from days gone by whose work influences and informs today's creators. These are artists who were innovative and revolutionary in their fields—bold visionaries and radicals, groundbreaking frontiersmen and women who inspired and informed culture as we know it today. This week: Chesley Bonestell.“I didn’t know what other worlds looked like until I saw Bonestell’s paintings.” —Carl Sagan
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For centuries, outer space has been influencing thousands of people around the globe, from science fiction writers to modern day artists, resulting in realistic depictions of the cosmos or exaggerated fantasies of alien landscapes. For many decades, practitioners of space art have explored the universe in their imaginations, using a wide array of mediums. Among the most influent artists involved in visualizing space exploration, one thinks of French astronomer Lucien Rudaux, Ludek Pesek, and of course Chesley Bonestell. The latter is mostly known for helping to popularize manned space travel, his cover art for science fiction magazines including Collier’s, Coronet, Astounding Science Fiction, and for his special effects matte paintings for films such as Citizen Kane and War of the Worlds.
An illustration from Collier’s.An Early ObsessionBorn in 1888, Chesley Bonestell soon discovered his passion for astronomy and made his first space painting at the age of 17. His first astronomical representation was of the planet Saturn, which he had viewed through a 30-centimeter telescope at San Jose’s Lick Observatory. Inspired by the ringed planet, he rushed home to paint it. Although this work was destroyed in a fire resulting from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Bonestell’s obsession with otherwordly celestial bodies never stopped.Educated as an architect, he soon dropped out to become a designer for several prominents architectural firms, working on the Art Deco facade of the Chrysler Building in New York City, and others landmark buildings such as the Plymouth Rock Memorial in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the US Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C.. During the Great Depression, he found himself in England where he worked for The Illustrated London News, which was also publishing astronomical illustrations from artists such as Scriven Bolton and Lucien Rudaux. After moving to Hollywood, he began creating matte paintings for films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), thus gaining some insight into film technique and miniature modeling.
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