‘Flight originated from the imagination’: how artists have captured space travel
As the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum turns 50, an expansive exhibition celebrates how art has coincided with spaceWearing a shiny silver spacesuit, Alan Shepard clutches his helmet and looks like an archetypal blue-eyed American hero. The 1961 portrait by Bruce Stevenson paid tribute to the first US astronaut in space. It also planted a seed.James Webb, the then administrator of Nasa, saw the painting and was inspired to start the space agency’s own art programme, believing that artists…
Source: www.theguardian.com