"I couldn't paint with the same conviction if I did not experience these situations firsthand." |
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From pets to planes, young Robert McCall loved to draw
Robert McCall (b. 1919) had a talent for sketching throughout his childhood in Columbus, Ohio. He got his first art commission as a sophomore in high school—a portrait of the family dentist's dog. McCall earned a scholarship to the Columbus Fine Arts School (now the Columbus College of Art and Design), and at 17 got a job creating streetcar posters and advertising billboards for a local sign shop.
In 1941, McCall joined the Army Air Corps and found he loved to draw aircraft in his free time. At that time, he remembered, "aircraft seemed about the most dramatic technological achievement of man." During his training near Albuquerque, he met and married Louise Harrup, an art student at the University of New Mexico. They moved to Chicago, where he worked in advertising. In 1949 they moved east because McCall wanted to be an illustrator, like Norman Rockwell, and believed that top illustrators had to be in New York. There, he drew and painted aviation subjects for Collier's, Life, Saturday Evening Post,and Popular Science.
He became America's foremost chronicler of aerospace exploration
In the 1950s, McCall's interest was drawn to the new field of space exploration. He went to nearly every launch and touchdown, strongly believing that an artist should be as close a part of the subject he paints as possible. His love of flight and space took him all over the world as he witnessed NASA's growth from early tests to routine space flights.
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