“The children laughed at the way everyone’s hair stood on end. The stewardess explained that this was caused by the gravitational pull of the moon.”

Chesley K. Bonestell, “The children laughed at the way everyone’s hair stood on end. The stewardess explained that this was caused by the gravitational pull of the moon.”

Chesley K. Bonestell, artist

1888–1986

“The children laughed at the way everyone’s hair stood on end. The stewardess explained that this was caused by the gravitational pull of the moon.”, 1950

Portfolio/Series title: "Mr. Smith Goes to Venus," published in Coronet

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: cardboard; acrylic

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 22.7 x 36.6 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 8 15/16 x 14 7/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 25.5 x 41.8 cm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 10 1/16 x 16 7/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 16 x 20 in

Credit line: Gift of Esquire, Inc.

Accession number: 1980.0718

Not on display

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Chesley Bonestell’s long and multifaceted career relied on his training in architecture, astronomy, and painting. He began as an architect, assisting in the design of New York’s Chrysler Building whose famous gargoyles are his invention; later he worked on the design of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. By the end of the 1930s he was employed in Hollywood as a special effects matte painter; his work is featured in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Citizen Kane (1941), and War of the Worlds (1953), among other classic films. The precision of the draftsman and the imagination of the artist combined in his most famous works, very technical paintings of outer space, the first of which were published in Life magazine in 1944. The Spencer Museum’s untitled work by Bonestell accompanied an article in Coronet magazine, “Mr. Smith Goes to Venus,” published in March 1950. Audiences delighted in these pictorial fantasies, which led to many more cosmic projects and eventually to collaboration with the pioneering space explorer Wernher von Braun.
Bonestell had more down-to-earth moments as well, as suggested by a series of illustrations for Esquire highlighting various American cities. Bonestell sometimes painted over aerial photographs of his subjects, such as New Orleans, where the dot pattern of the underlying image is barely discernible through the layered pigment. New Orleans appeared as an introduction to an article published in February 1948 celebrating the delightful virtues and vices of the venerable town spreading along the banks of the moonlit Mississippi. CCE

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Chesley K. Bonestell is an American painter and illustrator known as a pioneer in painting images of space. He realistically painted space flight and other astronomical scenes, especially planets in our solar system. Bonestell studied astronomy by reading scientific literature and experimented with different painting techniques to depict the planets more accurately. First printed in Life magazine, his work has since appeared in many other national publications and has inspired countless space enthusiasts.

This painting of a lunar space flight was completed twenty years before the first manned trip to the moon. People sit by the window of a spaceship that passes by the moon; their hair standing on end implies weightlessness and excitement. The spectacular view of space flight reflects human desire for space exploration as well as an optimistic vision of a human future in space.