PLATTSBURGH — Jet out of this world with “The Father of Space Art: Chesley Knight Bonestell,” an exhibition at the Plattsburgh State Art Museum.
A reception will be held today from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Slatkin Study Room, Myers Fine Arts Building on campus.
Bonestell (1888–1986) was an American pioneer of space art who helped popularize manned space travel. He is well known for his cover art for science fiction magazines, including Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction as well as many books such as The Conquest of Space, The Exploration of Mars, and Beyond the Solar System in collaboration with several authors well known in the field of space exploration.
“When we started thinking about the eclipse coming, I wanted to be kind of responsive to that it was happening,” Tonya M. Cribb, museum director, said.
“So, I was looking for a show that related somehow to the eclipse or astronomy in general. I wanted to connect it first to Rockwell Kent. I started doing some research on Rockwell Kent. We ended up doing a small, mini exhibit with his End of the World series. That was commissioned the by Adler Planetarium in Life Magazine. When I was doing research for Rockwell Kent, I came across Chesley Bonestell because he had also been asked to create a series about End of the World for the Adler.”
Cribb didn’t know anything about Bonestell, who is considered the “Father of Space Art.”
Born in San Francisco, Calif., he studied architecture at Columbia University in New York City. He dropped out in 1910 and went to work for architectural firms. A decade later, he relocated to England where he rendered architectural subjects for Illustrated London News. In 1926, he arrived back stateside in time to collaborate with Warren Straton on the Chrysler Building and its iconic eagles on the 61st floor.
“They don’t teach you about space art in college,” Cribb said.
“In art history, that’s not the typical thing you learn about. It was kind of neat to learn about him. He participated in getting a lot of things for Hollywood and the entertainment industry, but he didn’t receive recognition for it. He did a lot of set design based on science. The War of the Worlds was one of the original films that he did some of the backgrounds to.”
Cribb was intrigued with the parallels between Bonestell and the Adirondack’s most famous artist, Rockwell Kent (1882-1971).
“He, too, was trained as an architect just like Rockwell Kent was trained as an architect,” she said.
“He actually drew some of the designs for the Golden Gate Bridge. He actually was a part of that. But his true love was really astronomy. He became really interested in creating these images about the planets.”
Bonestell’s astronomical adventures were launched after seeing Saturn through the telescope at San Jose’s Lick Observatory in 1905. He captured his insights in a painting that was destroyed in a fire in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake.
“He was creating planetary sort of images prior to us even walking on the moon,” Cribb said.
“Some of his art also was part of his interpretation for thinking about more along the lines of going toward science fiction and the what if on this sort of enterprise beyond what were really aware of. His paintings were really interesting from that standpoint, and we had not been on the moon yet, but he had been creating work like this. It inspired a lot of other artists. A lot of artists that do space art today are more aware of Chesley Bonestell.”
Cribb was clueless about his body of work and stature.
“So, I really enjoyed learning about him and the vastness of his background,” she said.
“The thing about Chesley is that his work is in some prestigious collections. The Adler still has permanent collections of Chesley’s. That National Air and Space Museum has work of Chesley’s. Sometimes, it’s very difficult to get.”
Cribb reached out to director Douglass Stewart about screening his documentary, “Chesley Bonestell: A Brush with the Future.”
“And he gave me the contact information for the gentleman who owns the collection of works that we’re having on display,” she said.
“They are a private collection, so they’re not typically seen. That was really exciting. We don’t have all of his collection. We have a select number of works from his collection.”
Cribb reached out to colleague Lisabeth Kissner at SUNY for her input.
“She runs our planetarium here on campus, and she teaches the astronomy classes,” she said.
“Because that’s not my background and training, it was nice to invite her over to the museum to look at the list of works that we could choose from so that we could pick things that were really relevant to our students and what they are learning about in their classes.”