Nasa/Art: 50 Years of Exploration

Artists, like astronauts, are constantly probing into the unknown. It is fitting that, shortly after the establishment of NASA in 1958, the NASA Art Program was created on the principle that artists are uniquely equipped to interpret and document the experience of space exploration. In the program’s early years, artists as diverse as Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell, and James Wyeth participated. Over time, the Art Program has commissioned work from many of the world’s most distinguished artists. The collection includes works by Alexander Calder, Nam June Paik, William Wegman, Mike and Doug Starn, Vija Celmins, and Annie Leibovitz. Along with a two-year touring exhibition with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), NASA/Art celebrates the 50th anniversary of NASA in October 2008 with an expanded selection of the best work created for the NASA Art Program, and stands as a lasting record of the impact of space exploration on the artistic imagination.

James Dean was the founder of the NASA Art Program and its director from 1962 to 1974. Bertram Ulrich is Curator and Multimedia Manager at NASA and co-author of Abrams’ America in Space: NASA’s First Fifty Years. Thomas Crouch is Senior Curator of Aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum. Michael Collins was Command Module Pilot on Apollo 11 and the director of the National Air and Space Museum. Ray Bradbury is the author of more than 500 novels, short stories, plays, and volumes of verse.