Oh sure, you can argue Picasso, Rothko, Dali, Chagall... but these artists influenced art. Bonestell influenced the course of civilization. Specifically, the minds that would send mankind to the moon.

Originally trained and employed as an architect, Bonestell had always dabbled in astronomy subjects, and in the 1940s and 1950s he was the premiere space illustrator, doing mind-boggling illustrations for LIFE and Colliers magazines on mankind's future in space. Concurrently, Bonestell worked as a matte painter and special effects artist for movie studios. Illustrating fantastic scenes for (among other films) Citizen Kane, Heinlein's Destination Moon, The Conquest of Space and H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. He became the highest-paid matte artist of the era.

But what set Bonestell apart from sci-fi pulp artists was his close association with Wernher von Braun, the top German rocket scientist (and father of the Saturn V), Willy Ley, another German rocket scientist with a gift for written space evangelism (sort of a teutonic Carl Sagan), and Robert Richardson, an American astronomer. The Conquest of Space (1949), Conquest of the Moon (1953), The Exploration of Mars (1954), and The World We Live In (1955) were books all lavishly illustrated with astoundingly realistic scenes by Chesley Bonestell.

These widely-circulated articles, books and movies in the major media of the day caught the attention of many young impressionable minds and forever changed their direction. Many of these youngsters would become the scientists, astronomers, and engineers involved in the US space program. The dream of manned spaceflight in the 1950s, would, with Bonestellian momentum, land men on the moon in less than twenty years.

Bonestell died at age 98 in 1986. Von Braun died in 1977, and Ley died a few weeks before the launch of Apollo 11 in 1969.

Now, it seems as if it all happened in a flash. Those innocent days of cereal box decoder rings, Cracker-Jack prizes, and bug-eyed aliens turned almost too quickly into the reality of men walking on the Moon, and then evaporated into history and legend.

Space artists are once again prognosticating the hopeful future of space travel in their paintings. Such are the seeds of nostalgia. We at Novaspace Galleries not only fulfill the nostalgic demand for autographs from classic astronauts, but we've also seen a surge in demand for classic 1950s space art, with its pointy rockets, blue-sky Mars, and wheel and spoke space stations. Bonestell's books are premium items now, and there is a proliferation of Bonestell websites. Destination Moon has been re-released as a 50th anniversary DVD. A new retrospective book being written by long-time Bonestell pals Fred Durant and Ron Miller is due out in January, 2001.