Bonestell, Chesley

Chesley Bonestell, (born Jan. 1, 1888, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.—died June 11, 1986, Carmel, Calif.), American illustrator of spaceflight and astronomical subjects whose paintings, motion-picture special effects, and magazine illustrations captured the popular imagination in the decades before manned spaceflight began.

Bonestell from his early youth was drawn to creating drawings and paintings. His first view of astronomical objects was through telescopes at Lick Observatory, near San Jose, Calif., in 1905. He painted a picture of Saturn after that experience, but it was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, which Bonestell experienced firsthand. Bonestell studied architecture at Columbia University in New York City but did not receive a degree. He worked as an architect and architectural illustrator between 1910 and 1938 and was involved in the building of the Chrysler Building in New York City and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. In 1938 he started a second career as a motion-picture special-effects illustrator; he became the most sought-after matte artist in Hollywood, and his backgrounds appear in many classic movies, such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and Citizen Kane (1941).

In 1944 Life magazine published a Bonestell painting of Saturn as seen from its moon Titan that began his third career as a space and astronomy artist. Perhaps his most famous paintings are those that illustrated the series in Collier’s magazine titled “Man Will Conquer Space Soon” (1952–54). His vivid depictions of human spaceflight activity in magazines, books, and movies between the late 1940s and the ’70s were influential in creating popular acceptance of the feasibility of spaceflight. Bonestell’s paintings now hang in museums and planetariums around the world and in many private collections.