| Chesley Bonestell |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT CHESLEY BONESTELL | |
| 1888 births | |
| bonestell, chesley | |
| 1986 deaths | |
| astronomy people | |
| science fiction artists | |
| science fiction hall of fame | |
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BIOGRAPHY Bonestell studied architecture at Columbia University in New York City . Dropping out in his third year, he worked as a renderer and designer for several of the leading Architectural firms of the time. While with William Van Alen , he designed the Art Deco façade of the Chrysler Building as well as its distinctive Gargoyle s. During this same period, he designed the Plymouth Rock Memorial , the U.S. Supreme Court Building, the New York Central Building, Manhattan office and apartment buildings and several state capitols. Returning to the West Coast, he worked on the Golden Gate Bridge , where he illustrated all of the stages of the bridge's construction as well as contributing to the final design. When the Great Depression dried up architectural work in the United States , Bonestell went to England , where he rendered architectural subjects for the ''Illustrated London News''. In the late 1930s he moved to Hollywood , where he used his talent for realistic painting to work as a Special Effects artist, creating Matte Paintings for such films as '' Citizen Kane '', '' The Magnificent Ambersons '' and '' The Hunchback Of Notre Dame ''. MAGAZINES 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 Moon s 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 of Saturn seen from the frosty moon Titan is perhaps the most famous astronomical landscape ever. It was constructed with a combination of clay models, photographic tricks, and various painting techniques. (It turns out that Titan has a thick haze such that such a view is probably not possible in reality.) Bonestell followed up the sensation these paintings created by publishing more paintings in many leading national Magazine s. These and others were eventually collected in the best-selling book ''The Conquest of Space'' (1949), produced in collaboration with author Willy Ley . Bonestell's last work in Hollywood was contributing special effects art and technical advice to the seminal Science Fiction films produced by George Pál , including '' Destination Moon ''. In the 1950s, Bonestell did cover paintings for science fiction magazines, including The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Galaxy Science Fiction , but he is probably best known as one of the earliest, and certainly leading exponents of astronomical or Space Art . When Wernher Von Braun organized a space flight symposium for '' Collier's '', he invited Bonestell to illustrate his concepts for the future of spaceflight. For the first time, spaceflight was shown to be a matter of the near future. Von Braun and Bonestell showed that it could be accomplished with the Technology then existing in the mid- 1950s , and that the question was that of Money and will. Coming as they did at the beginning of the Cold War and just before the sobering shock of the launch of Sputnik , the 1952-54 '' Collier's Magazine '' series titled Man Will Conquer Space Soon was instrumental in kick-starting America's space program. LEGACY Bonestell died in 1986 with an unfinished painting on his easel. By then he had been honored internationally for the contribution he made to the birth of modern Astronautics , from a bronze medal awarded by the British Interplanetary Society to a place in the International Space Hall Of Fame to an asteroid named for him. His paintings are prized by collectors and institutions such as the National Air And Space Museum and the National Collection Of Fine Arts . One of his classic paintings, an ethereally beautiful image of Saturn seen from its giant moon Titan , has been called "the painting that launched a thousand careers." Wernher von Braun wrote that he had "learned to respect, nay fear, this wonderful artist's obsession with perfection. My file cabinet is filled with sketches of rocket ships I had prepared to help in his artwork—only to have them returned to me with…blistering criticism." A Crater on Mars and the Asteroid 3129 Bonestell are named after him. REFERENCES IN LITERATURE An exerpt from '' Stranger In A Strange Land '' by Robert A. Heinlein :
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