Father and Son Record NASA Triumphs Through Artists’ Eyes

By Bob Granath

Each year during mid-July, space historians celebrate one of the most momentous events of the 20th Century. For the first time, humans left Earth to land on the Moon. Many nations around the world have extensively celebrated the mission of Apollo 11 on postage stamps. In the United States, the most iconic commemoratives include works of art by a father and son team – Paul and Chris Calle.

During America’s earliest efforts to send humans to space, Paul Calle was one of eight artists chosen to participate in the NASA Art Program. In this role, he was at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969 documenting the Apollo 11 astronauts as they prepared for launch to the Moon. During the days that followed, a global television audience of an estimated 650 million viewers watched as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin explored the lunar surface.

The United States Postal Service selected Calle to design a commemorative air mail stamp issued a few weeks after the astronauts safely returned to Earth. To honor the 20th anniversary of the event, Paul’s son, Chris Calle, designed a Priority Mail stamp released in 1989.

In 1994, father and son collaborated designing stamps issued for the 25th anniversary. They originally were asked to design one painting for an Express Mail stamp. A 29-cent stamp was added and the Calles produced a new image on a souvenir sheet of 12 stamps that include the Earthrise photograph taken by the Apollo 8 crew in 1968.

Paul Calle

A native of the Manhattan borough of New York City, Paul Calle earned a bachelor’s degree from Pratt Institute, a school focusing on engineering, architecture and fine arts. He went on to serve as an illustrator while in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict. His earliest work as an artist included designing magazine covers for The Saturday Evening Post along with illustrations for publications such as Galaxy and Amazing Stories, featuring articles of science fiction.

From Gordon Cooper’s Mercury flight in May 1963 through Space Shuttle missions, the elder Calle documented activities ranging from work at NASA’s Florida spaceport to recovery operations aboard aircraft carriers at sea. Prior to the Apollo/Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), Calle traveled with agency officials to Russia to document training involving astronauts and cosmonauts. ASTP was a link-up in Earth orbit between a U.S. Apollo crew and cosmonauts aboard a Soviet Soyuz capsule, His sketches and paintings have been displayed at the National Gallery of Art and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Following Project Gemini, Calle designed America’s first se-tenant pair of stamps released on Sept. 29, 1967. Gemini was NASA’s program that technologically bridged the agency’s first human space flights to the Apollo lunar landing effort. Two separate stamps together form one complementary image of the Gemini 4 spacecraft and NASA astronaut Ed White performing America’s first spacewalk.

Altogether, Calle created 40 U.S. postage stamps, including designs honoring noted Americans such as Douglas MacArthur, Robert Frost and Frederic Remington. Calle and Remington both produced numerous works of art depicting cowboys and Native Americans in the Western United States. Calle’s art portraying the American West have been included in the collections of the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma and at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia. In additional to developing artwork for the U.S. Postal Service, Calle developed designs for stamps issued by Sweden, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and the United Nations.

Chris Calle

Chris Calle is from Stamford, Connecticut and earned a degree from the University of Michigan. During the Shuttlefest II conference on April 15, 2023 in Titusville, Florida near Kennedy, he explained that his focus on space art is a reflection of his father’s work.

“I began as an illustrator using pencil and inks for a long time,” he said. “But my passion has always been to focus on space, because I grew up with it.”

As a child, Chris followed his father to Kennedy for many activities, but the liftoff of the final Moon landing mission on Dec. 7, 1972 left a lasting impression.

“I was here for several launches, but I especially remember Apollo 17,” he said.

It was a night liftoff and brilliant flame contrasted against the dark sky.

“I saw that flash and then the rumble reached us like a tornado,” he said.

In 2009, Chris Calle wrote the book, Celebrating Apollo 11, The Artwork of Paul Calle recalling his father’s work honoring the first Moon landing mission. It provides a comprehensive recollection of sketches and paintings the elder Calle created to document events surrounding the historic mission. Additionally, the book details prospective designs that led to not only the 1969 First Man on the Moon stamp, but later commemoratives in which both Paul and Chris Calle collaborated.

During the filming of the 2018 motion picture First Man,producers wanted the scene of Armstrong, Aldrin and Mike Collins donning their pressure suits to be as authentic as possible. Paul Calle was present during the suiting-up process producing several sketches of the activity. Since Paul Calle passed away in 2010, “They asked me to play the part of my dad,” Chris Calle said.

“I still had the actual sketch pad Dad used that day,” he said, “so I brought it in for the filming of that scene.”

Today, Chris Calle takes his experiences and applies them to familiar images with many of these including thought provoking impressions. In one painting, an Apollo astronaut stands on the Moon, but the sky is an image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The viewer realizes those first tentative steps on a world near Earth during Apollo was merely the beginning of exploration of the vast universe.

However, some of his work includes a bit of fantasy. One of the younger Calle’s paintings shows “a lot of unique perspectives,” such as an Apollo astronaut on the Moon with Star Wars characters R2D2 and C3PO standing nearby.

Read more about Paul and Chris Calle, along with examples of their outstanding depictions of space history on the website: Calle Space Art

Calle noted that he is looking forward to NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions returning crews to the lunar surface.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve talked about going back to the Moon,” he said. “It’s going to be exciting.”

Artemis is a collaborative effort with commercial and international partners using innovative new technologies and systems to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. From there, the agency will use what is learned on and around the Moon to send astronauts to Mars.

Through Artists’ Eyes

NASA administrator James Webb began the NASA Art Program in 1962, enlisting some of the most respected artists of the time. Those included Norman Rockwell, whose works reflected America’s culture, to Andy Warhol, a leading figure in pop art. NASA artist James Dean led the program with the assistance of Lester Cooke, curator of the National Gallery of Art. Illustrators were commissioned to preserve humankind’s efforts reaching beyond Earth viewed through the eyes of artists. The goal was to “see” the events with a perspective that not only depicts the events, but also does so in a way to touch emotions.

Artists from different mediums and genres were offered unprecedented access to NASA activities to reach varied audiences documenting space exploration and the people making it happen. All works, from sketches to finished products, were given to NASA for use in museums and exhibitions. The collection now includes 2,500 works by more than 350 artists.

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