Florida—When NASA opened its doors to artists in 1962, it had no trouble attracting names as diverse as Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol. William Wegman’s Weimaraner in a space suit owes its existence to the NASA Art Program, as does a lithograph (about human curiosity) by Robert Rauschenberg. When humans got our first glimpse of the dark side of the moon in 1968, Robert McCall painted a small Apollo against a cratered landscape. As part of the celebrations for NASA’s 50th anniversary this fall, the Smithsonian has organized a traveling exhibition of 73 works created for the program. It’s no trip to outer space—but perhaps they’re saving that for the centennial.

 

NASA Art: Art League of Bonita Springs; October 25–January 17, 2009; sites.si.edu.

 

"Space. The Final (Art) Frontier" originally appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Culture+Travel. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Culture+Travel's Fall 2008 Table of Contents.