Space Flight

Additional Information

Provenance:
Private collection, Texas
Literature:
Arizona Highways, September 1983: cover.
Our World in Space, Robert McCall and Isaac Asimov, New York Graphic Society,
Greenwich, CT, 1974: cover.
In 1974, painter Robert McCall and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov worked
together on Our World in Space, a book that was both speculative of human
achievement in the cosmos—grand cities in the stars, colonies on distant planets,
travel to other solar systems—and a fond acknowledgment of the triumph that
mankind had already accomplished. The forward was written by Buzz Aldrin, the
second man to walk on the moon. McCall’s painting Space Flight graces the cover,
which is printed on a reflective foil-like dustjacket that looks more like a NASA
operating manual than an art book. “Mr. McCall eagerly translated his youthful
enthusiasm for drawing knights in shining armor on spirited steeds into paintings
of intrepid astronauts in gleaming space vehicles, both real and imagined,” his
New York Times obituary reads. “When NASA in 1962 hit on the idea of enlisting
artists to promote its mission, Mr. McCall was one of the first three chosen. He
went on to create hundreds of vivid paintings, from representations of gleaming
spaceships to futuristic dream cities where shopping centers float in space. His
most famous image may be the gargantuan mural, showing events from the
creation of the universe to men walking on the moon, on the south lobby wall of
the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington. More
than 10 million people a year pass it.”
McCall, who grew up in Ohio looking through telescopes and staring into the
sky, also created NASA mission patches, illustrated science fiction magazine
articles, designed postage stamps and created the movie poster for 2001: A
Space Odyssey.

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