Robert A. M. Stephens - Biography
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In a July 1, 2004 exhibit of his recent oil paintings, Robert Stephens will also feature the offical NASA Memorial painting that he has been commissioned by the NASA Art Documentation Program-Smithsonian to paint for the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The painting will be on exhibit in the gallery throughout the month before it is installed in its permanent location at the NASA-IMAX-Smithsonian Exhibition at NASA Kennedy Space Center. Robert, as a young man decided to teach himself through books and experimentation to paint in the style of luminist painting that he admired. The artists that he most admired included Winslow Homer, Martin Johnson Heade, Albert Bierstadt, Frederick Edwin Church, Thomas Moran and other notable realistic artists of the 19th Century who were all great inspirations. In his mid twenties, he joined a gallery in his home state of Montana housed in a large convention center that had tourist traffic from all over the world. From this exposure, he obtained European shows and even China in the first culture exchange between the United States and the People's Republic. In 1981, Robert was accepted for the NASA Fine Art Documentation Program and assigned to document the first launch of the first Space Shuttle Orbiter, Columbia in April, 1981. Subsequently, he has been assigned many Shuttle and other NASA documentation paintings. Robert was in the running for the first Artist in Space candidate in 1985. Then in 1986 when the Space Shuttle Orbiter Challenger was destroyed, that Artist in Space Project was put on an indefinite hold. In 1988, Robert was contracted to paint the official NASA memorial painting for the loss of the Challenger and return to flight documentation with the resumption of space flight, Discovery. Both paintings are now in the NASA-IMAX-Smithsonian Exhitition at NASA Kennedy Space Center. Robert has also been commissioned to paint the official Memorial paintings for the loss of the astronauts on orbiter Columbia on 2-1-2003 for the Nations of Israel and India. Respectively, the paintings will be inducted into the National Museum of Israel, Jerusalem; and in the National Royal Museum of Art, New Delhi. The paintings of Robert A. M. Stephens are included in many impressive collections such as Smithsonian Institution; Cousteau Society, Paris, France; National Academy of Art, Republic of the Phillippines; Academy of Fine Art, Sultan of Brunei, Borneo; Cultural Art Center, Tokyo, Japan; Neil Young; Pepsico; Rolls Royce Motors, Ltd.; The Whitehouse, Washington, D.C.; Lockheed; Stone-Giegy, Bonn, Germany; Territory of Saipan, Governor's Mansion; Tom Cook Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland; and the Lord Mayor's Office, Dublin Ireland to name a selected few. |
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