Robert T McCall 1919-2010

[LunaSea]

February 28, 2010 — An artist whose visions of the past, present, and future of space exploration have graced U.S. postage stamps, NASA mission patches, and the walls of the Smithsonian, Robert McCall died on Friday of a heart attack in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was 90.

Once described by author Isaac Asimov as the "nearest thing to an artist in residence from outer space," McCall's paintings first attracted the public's attention in the 1960s on the pages of LIFE, illustrating the magazine's series on the future of space travel. He expanded on that theme at the invitation of director Stanley Kubrick, who had McCall paint the advertising posters for his seminal 1968 science fiction film, "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Since then, many more have encountered McCall's space art through canvases both very large and very small.

Perhaps his most famous piece, the six-story "The Space Mural - A Cosmic View" greets visitors to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Painted over the course of eight months in 1976, McCall's depiction of the creation of the universe leading to astronauts walking on the Moon is seen by an estimated ten million annually.






Born in Columbus, Ohio in 1919, McCall's early interest in art led to his winning a scholarship to the Columbus Fine Art School following his graduation from high school. After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, McCall did a short stint as an advertising artist before becoming a magazine illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post, LIFE, and Popular Science.

Invited by the Air Force in the mid-1950s to tour air bases around the world as part of an art program, McCall created nearly 50 paintings which he donated to the Air Force and which now hang in the Pentagon, the Air Force Academy, and as part of a traveling exhibition open to the public.

Enamored by the advent of NASA, McCall was one of the first artists to be invited into the civilian space agency's own art program, alongside the likes of Norman Rockwell and other well-known American painters. In attendance at every major launch, McCall became an eyewitness to the U.S. space program, following the astronauts through their flight preparations and missions.

In addition to his work as a visual historian for NASA and the posters he created for Kubrick's "2001," McCall also served as the art director on Disney's "The Black Hole" as well as the 1979 Paramount feature film "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."


http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-022810a.html

http://www.mccallstudios.com/

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/mccall_robert_t.html

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/movie/Misc/HTML/EM-0070-01.html

[ashling]

1. And he wrote all those trucker songs

oh, that was C.W. (sorry)
:P

[TheDebbieDee]

2. Mr. McCall was good........that man had VISION.