Space Art
                                             (1978 - Starlog Magazine)  

     (by Ron Miller)   Astronomical art had accompanied many slick-magazine articles and interesting texts about how mankind would progress off the home-planet, out into space, but the publishers of the SF-fan-centric magazine STARLOG felt that there hadn't yet been a volume celebrating the art for itself and produced this one as the first.  Find here 192 pages (plus the wraparound cover piece) with 154 of them dominated by that art.  While, 30 of those gather together two-or-more images, the rest feature large reproductions, including 32 images that extend past the central gutter, sometimes to form full double-page-spreads (five of those flunk out in that presentation).  There are also some charts & cutaway diagrams in the mix, but most of the text is indeed about the artists and the milieus amid which this type of art was created.  The theme here is only loosely adhered to, as some of the featured pieces hew more to fantastical fiction than realistic depiction or speculation.  Captions are anecdotal in nature, but do identify the artist (where known), source, and who gave permission for the reproduction.  The 'well-presented' artists here are:  Paul Arlt, Sally Bensusen, Charles Bittinger, Scriven Bolton, Chesley Bonestell (14), Harold Russell Butler, Paul Calle (2), John Clark, Hal Clement, Jack Coggins, Ray Crane, James Cunningham, Don Davis (4), Don Dixon (5), David Egge, Fred Freeman (3), David Hardy (3)**, William Hartmann, James Hervat, Mel Hunter, Mitchell Jamieson, Rolf Klep (2), Francis J. Krasyk (2), Paul Lehr, W.R. Leigh, Robert McCall (2), Sid Mead, Ron Miller (5), Tom Miller, Pierre Mion (2), Ludek Pesek (9), Henry C. Pitz, Robert Rauschenberg, Norman Rockwell**, Sheila Rose, Lucien Rudaux (5), Adolf Schaller, John Schoenherr, Alex Schomburg**, Andrei Sokolov, D. Owen Stevens, Denise Watt-Geiger, John Willis, Helmut Wimmer, Stanley Wood, H. Seppings Wright, James Wyeth, and UNKNOWN (3).  There's also a helpful artist-index included.  Personally, this was one of the few books that has been in my collection since adolescence.


** - Note that Hardy, Rockwell & Schomberg's pieces are not found 'well-presented' in their own collections on The List.


other Astronomical art collections

  In The Stream Of Stars - The Soviet/American Space Art Book

  Visions Of Space

  Cosmos  [BELOW THE LINE]



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