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In "The Source of Intelligent Life," Alan Bean’s signature style comes alive in this special Textured Canvas Fine Art Edition. As an artist, Bean conveys the sense of space travel not only through subject and color but also texture. As an astronaut and moonwalker, he can use the tools that once used to explore the Moon to help him put the Moon’s stamp in and on his art.
Prior to painting the image, Bean covers the surface on which he will work with a texturing material. He then uses exact replicas of his Moon boots to make footprints across this surface to replicate the Apollo boot prints remaining on the moon today. Next he uses the same geology hammer he worked with on the Apollo 12 mission to dig into the painting’s surface. Finally, a sharp edged bit from one of the core tubes is used to make round indentations in the surface. All of these come to amazing 3-dimensional life in this striking Fine Art Edition.
With "The Source of Intelligent Life," Bean gives us a view that only an artist who has visited another world could have witnessed. “We can see Africa’s west coast to the right turning into the night. Many scientists believe that we are all, even those as far away as South America which is just coming over the western horizon, descendants of a single woman in Africa. Her descendants have journeyed far to make their homes. I’ll bet during her probably brief, difficult and dangerous life, she looked up at the brightest light in the night sky and wondered what it was, never imagining that her children might visit there someday.”
It going to be hard to believe that you haven’t purchased the original when you hang your Fine Art Textured Canvas of "The Source of Intelligent Life." The Greenwich Workshop’s reputation has been built on our exacting standards and this is as exacting a Fine Art Edition as possible. Each canvas is signed by legendary Apollo 12 astronaut, moonwalker and artist Captain Alan Bean, each a work of art, each a historic document, each your own personal connection to traveling in space. Own a Fine Art Textured Canvas by astronaut and explorer Alan Bean and you will never look at the Moon the same way again.
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Twelve people have walked on the moon. Only one was an explorer artist, Alan
Bean—Apollo XII astronaut, commander of Skylab II and artist. Born in 1932 in
Wheeler, Texas and in 1950, Alan was selected for an NROTC scholarship at the
University of Texas at Austin. Alan was commissioned an ensign in the United
States Navy in 1955. Holder of eleven world records in space and astronautics,
Alan Bean has had a most distinguished peacetime career. His awards include
two NASA Distinguished Service Medals, the Yuri Gagarin Gold Medal and the
Robert J. Collier Trophy. As part of the Apollo XII crew, he became the fourth
of only twelve men ever to walk on the Moon. As the spacecraft commander of
Skylab Mission II, he set a world record: 24,400,000 miles traveled during the
59-day flight.
When he wasn’t flying, Bean always enjoyed painting as a hobby. Attending
night classes at St. Mary’s College in Maryland in 1962, Alan experimented
with landscapes. During training and between missions as a test pilot and
astronaut, he continued private art lessons. On space voyages, his artist’s
eye and talent enabled him to document impressions of the Moon and space to be
preserved later on canvas. A voracious student, Alan began to immerse himself
in polishing his talent with the same intensity he gave to his astronaut
training. Inspired by the impressionists and studying under contemporary
masters, he is a first-rate artist who is as comfortable rendering sharp
realism as he is with portraying subtle emotions through a faceless spacesuit—
but there's a bonus: As the only artist who has visited another world, Bean
paints with an authenticity and insight completely unique in the entire
history of art by creating a palette mirroring his artistic eye. His is a
personal portfolio of the golden era of space exploration as viewed by the
only artist who has BEEN there. His art reflects the attention to detail of
the aeronautical engineer, the respect for the unknown of the astronaut and
the unabashed appreciation of a skilled explorer artist.
The space program has seen unprecedented achievements and Bean realized that
most of those who participated actively in this adventure would be gone in
forty years. He knew that if any credible artistic impressions were to remain
for future generations, he must paint them now. “My decision to resign from
NASA in 1981 was based on the fact that I am fortunate enough to have seen
sights no other artist ever has,” Bean said, “and I hope to communicate these
experiences through art.” He is pursuing this dream at his home and studio in
Houston.
Bean’s book, Apollo: An Eyewitness Account, which chronicles his first-person
experience as an Apollo astronaut and explorer artist in words and paintings,
was received with critical and popular acclaim upon its publication in 1998.
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