During the COVID-19 shutdown three years ago, I spent a lot of my time at home digging through my archives discovering all sorts of items I had not seen in many years. Among the forgotten treasures I found was a collection of Soviet-era postcards featuring space art which I had received from a pen pal I had in Lithuania (which was then a republic in the USSR). One collection in particular, a card collection released in 1989 by Izobrazitelnoye Iskusstvo Publishers in Moscow entitled Star Way of Humanity, caught my attention since it featured a collection of Soviet and American space art. While I have previously shared the Soviet contributions to this collection (see “Soviet Space Art: Star Way of Humanity”), I figured it was time to share the American space art from this collection as well.
The cover from the Soviet Star Way of Humanity card collection featuring space art from Soviet and American artists.
What follows are the paintings in this collection from American artists with the original English language descriptions included on the back of the cards.
“Hail Columbia” (1981) by Robert McCall
Symbolic painting celebrating the first flight of the United States Space Shuttle, 12 April 1981.
“Io” (1988) by Michael Carroll
Jupiter’s moon, Io, is perhaps the most active moon in the solar system. Pools of black sulphur continually erupt in volcanic craters. Jupiter would appear 39 times as large as our moon does from Earth.
“Earth from Space” (1980) by Don Davis
The Earth is viewed from a point in space above the north Atlantic Ocean at coordinates of 20° West longitude and 50° North latitude. Major cities of Western Europe and North and South America may be identified from their lights. A corona of aurora borealis crowns the north pole.
“A Jetting Galaxy” (1987) by Ron Miller
A jetting galaxy seen in the sky of a moonlit, icy world is dominated by a large, barred spiral galaxy. The nucleus of the barred galaxy is active and possibly contains an accretion disk around a black hole. By processes still uncertain to astronomers, the nuclei of galaxies sometimes produce high-speed jets of gas nearly perpendicular to the galactic system.
“Together to Mars” (1986) by Pamela Lee
Painting symbolizes cooperative future flight by U.S. and Soviet cosmonauts.
“High Rendezvous” (1983) by William K. Hartmann
Soviet and American astronauts guide their ships into formation for joint orbital flight around the Moon, as a step toward establishing an international lunar base.
“Columbia’s First Landing” (1981) by Robert T. McCall
Landing of the first United States Space Shuttle on 14 April 1981.
“Surface of Mercury” (1948) by Chesley Bonestell
This innovative painting used the best astronomical data available at the time. Astronauts (lower left) survey the sun-baked landscape of this desolate, airless world. Zodiacal light is shown surrounding the sun.
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More articles on Drew Ex Machina about space art can be found on the Space Art Page.