The artist who showed you what space looks like

[n2doc]

To illustrate a talk about the search for alien worlds at the TED conference, MIT professor Sara Seager flashed a lava-soaked landscape teeming with fireballs and gurgling streams. On the bottom corner of the slide, it read “Artist Conception Credit: Ron Miller.”


Though his name was displayed in tiny letters, Ron Miller, 67, is a titan in the field of space art, also known as astronomical art. Space art is a specialization that seeks to portray realistic and persuasive visions of the universe, galaxies, exoplanets, and even solar eclipses.

A former art director at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the award-winning artist is the author of 50-plus books, including what’s considered the most comprehensive volume on astronomical art, The Art of Space. Miller’s spectacular vistas, along with the work of a select group of artists, have fed the collective imagination about outer space for film, illustrations, and visual culture writ large.

On a day when many people are looking up the sky, Quartz interviewed Miller about his creative process and the burgeoning field of space art.

more

http://qz.com/366109/how-space-art-is-made/

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. I'm pleased that in the interview, Miller mentioned Chesley Bonestell

Who created some outstanding space art from the 1950s until his death in 1986. Looking him up in Wikipedia just now, I discovered that Bonestell was originally an architectural designer, and designed the façade of the Chrysler Building.

In the Quartz.com article, it would have been nice if they had put captions on the illustrations.