SOKOLOV, ANDREI. "САТУРН НА ТИТАНЕ" [SATURN ON TITAN], CIRCA 1959

Acrylic on canvas 27 ½ by 16 (sight), framed to 33 by 21 ½ inches. 

ILLUSTRATED in part of a series of Soviet Space postcards printed by the Калининский полиграфкомбинат Главполиграф [Kalinin Printing House Glavpoligraf], circa 1965.

A piece inspired by Chesley Bonestell's 1944 masterpiece  "Saturn, Viewed from Titan." Andrei Sokolov is known as the premier Russian artist documenting space flight history. Born in Leningrad in 1931, Sokolov was originally trained as an architect and attended Moscow State University, where he developed an interest in science fiction. The flight of Sputnik had a profound effect on him, and he began to devote himself to the space genre because of the groundswell of public appeal of the nascent Soviet space age. He went on to become the chosen instrument of the USSR to graphically depict the Soviet space program - especially after forming a long lasting friendship with the Soviet national hero Alexei Leonov.  The present work depicts a mobile space station on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, with cosmonauts preparing to launch a research rocket to study the rings of Saturn.