The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a major exhibition that highlights the long-standing relationship between art and space exploration.
The initiative began in 1961 when a portrait of astronaut Alan Shepard by Bruce Stevenson caught the eye of NASA Administrator James Webb.
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He subsequently established NASA's art program in 1962.
James Dean led the program until 1974, then became the museum's first art curator.
He transferred about 2,000 NASA artworks to the museum, forming the core of a collection that now exceeds 8,000 pieces.
The updated Flight and the Arts Center features works by renowned artists such as Alexander Calder, Henry Casselli, Annie Leibovitz, Norman Rockwell, and Alma Thomas.
Carolyn Russo, curator of the art collection, explained the museum's rationale: "Why do we collect art? Flight originated from the imagination.
It originated from the hands of artists.
Whereas we have artefacts in our museum that tell us what they did and how they flew, art shows us the human dimension of flight and how we experience it, how we feel about it."
Rockwell's Vision and Questions
Norman Rockwell documented NASA's space program for Look magazine in 1964.
His 1967 painting, Man's First Step on the Moon (United States SpaceShip on the Moon), combined meticulous research with early speculation based on a full-size lunar module model.
Rockwell later questioned the program amid societal struggles.
In a draft of a 1969 speech delivered just before the first successful moon landing, he asked: "Is the space program a lunatic idea now, when we in America are confronted with the problems of poverty, racial injustice, national security and the Vietnam war?"
