Esquire in New Orleans

Chesley K. Bonestell, artist

1888–1986

Esquire in New Orleans, circa 1948

Portfolio/Series title: "Esquire in New Orleans," published in Esquire magazine, February 1948

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: paint; probably gelatin silver print

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 25.3 x 25 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 9 15/16 x 9 13/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 45.5 x 40.5 cm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 17 15/16 x 15 15/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 20 x 16 in

Credit line: Gift of Esquire, Inc.

Accession number: 1980.0720

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