Chesley Bonestell

Art Brokerage: Chesley Bonestell American Artist; b. 1888-1986. Bonestell was born January 1, 1888, in San Francisco, California, to Chesley Knight Bonestell and his wife, Jovita (née Ferrer). Jovita was a daughter of Manuel Y. Ferrer, a Spanish-American musician. Bonestell then realized that he could combine what he had learned about camera angles, miniature modeling, and painting techniques with his lifelong interest in astronomy. The result was a series of paintings of Saturn as seen from several of its moons that was published in Life in 1944. Nothing like these had ever been seen before: they looked as though photographers had been sent into space. His painting "Saturn as Seen from Titan"is perhaps the most famous astronomical landscape ever, and is nicknamed "the painting that launched a thousand careers." It was constructed with a combination of clay models, photographic tricks and various painting techniques (Titan has a thick haze; such a view is probably not possible in reality). His paintings inspired the American space program, and they have been (and remain) influential in science fiction art and illustration. A pioneering creator of astronomical art, along with the French astronomer-artist Lucien Rudaux, Bonestell has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Space art". Listings wamted.