In 1962, just four years after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created as a federal agency, James Webb established NASA’s Artist’s Cooperation Program.
This page from the artist Chet Jexierski's spiral-bound sketchbook shows two astronauts inside the lunar module simulator at Kennedy Space Center. Text in the bottom margin reads: "Two Apollo astronauts work out in the Lunar Module Simulator at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. (LM pilot on the left - mission commander on the right ) Reflections on the simulator ride I couldn't get."
Modeled after the U.S. Air Force’s art program, Webb hoped that the agency’s commission of fine art would help communicate the cultural significance of the space program’s initial advancements. Administrators still needed to sell the idea that traveling to the Moon was a possibility to the tax-paying American public. NASA believed that artistic interpretations of its projects would offer less fleeting narratives than newspaper or television coverage.
Meet The Artists
Throughout the Apollo program, a range of artists were given unrestricted access to NASA’s various facilities in order to collect usable reference materials.
Artists like Robert McCall, Fred Freeman, and Robert Rauschenberg all participated in the program, lending their images and reputations to NASA’s public engagement efforts in the years leading up to the Moon landing. Norman Rockwell worked alongside the artists of the NASA Art Program.
The Artwork
After the conclusion of the Apollo program, the need for commissioned art seemed less acute, and throughout the 1970s the art program slowed. In 1975, Jim Dean, a founder of the NASA art program, along with Lester Cooke, a curator of paintings at the National Gallery of Art, played a key role in bringing the collection to the Museum.