Space Age Art of Robert McCall

This weekend, Sir Robert and I paid a visit to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC.  It had been about 20 years since I had been there, so it was good to get back there and see some great things again.  Space capsules, a Lunar Module, giant rockets, a section of Skylab, Pioneer, Viking, they were all there.  One of the most impressive things to see, however, was not a piece of machinery.... it was a mural.  On the wall in the main lobby was an amazing depiction of space exploration.  A moon landing and an larger-than-life Apollo astronaut seemed to gaze out at the museum visitors, amid a backdrop of countless planets, starts, and galaxies.   The style of the work was very familiar to me, so today,  I did some Googling to find out who the man was behind the work.

The mural, aptly named, "The Space Mural - A Cosmic View", was painted in 1976 by Robert McCall.  McCall is probably one of America's greatest space age painters of all time.  As I paged thru images of his work, I realized I had seen lots of his paintings before.  I was taken back to my youth, when I had a great sense of optimism for space exploration, science, and the future.  It's clear to me that McCall wished to share this same sense of optimism and vision with all those who saw his work.  He really spoke to an entire generation that grew up watching moon landings, shuttle launches, and planetary fly-bys.  At least, I can say, he spoke to me.  As I looked at the mural, and the array of capsules and rocketry, I said aloud in the museum that I always dreamt of space travel and the future... and I still do.

These are photos I took of the mural:

Here's a great article about McCall.  Here is another.

And just because... here are images of a few of the space stamps that Robert McCall's work appears on: