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It's offered to your attention the untitled painting by Andrey Sokolov - the premier Soviet and Russian artist documenting space flight history and depicting space fiction for over 40 years. Sokolov is the world's first artist who began drawing open space without leaving the studio. Painting in acrylic, tempera and oil on cardboard and canvas, Sokolov precisely emphasized the details of the construction of space ships, landscapes and cosmic phenomena.
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Artist - Andrey Sokolov.
Acrylic painting on paper, glued onto cardboard.
Size - paintng 8.5x10.4" (22x26 cm), cardboard 9.6x13.7" (24x35 cm).
Known publications - no.
Real look - front, back.
See the painting supersized.
Another space fiction painting depicting manual destruction of the asteroid which is very close to collide with the Earth, orbital station or human's space settlement. Sometimes machines can not complete certain tasks. Then a man has to fight against destructive nature.
Now the problem of collisions in space is more and more acute. The meteorites are not the only threats in space. Space debris and unmanaged spacecraft, speeding across the expanses of the Universe, may cause the death of spacecraft.
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 The author Andrey Sokolov was born in 1931 in Leningrad. His father was one of the leading developers of the launch facility Baikonur. Educated as architect and studied art in Moscow Architectural Institute, Sokolov participated in art exhibitions since 1955 as science fiction artist. Since childhood the artist liked fiction of Jules Verne, Belyaeva, Tsiolkovsky, Bradbury. Sokolov devoted his first sci-fi paintings to Bradbury's novel "Fahrenheit 451". After the launch of Sputnik in 1957 all his creativity was directed to the theme of space exploration.
He worked closely with the cosmonauts, particularly with his friend cosmonaut Alexey Leonov who has collaborated with Sokolov on a number of projects, assisting with the realistic depiction of views from orbit as the one who has seen them. Sokolov was a member of the Russian Union of Artists where he became The Chairman of the Cosmic Group. He had numerous exhibitions in the Soviet Union and abroad, including the U.S., West Germany, Holland and Japan. His art works have been published in many books and magazines, including Air and Space, and in seven books of his own (some done in collaboration with Alexey Leonov). Many Sokolov's paintings were used for the Soviet posters, postcards and postal stamps. As enormously prolific artist, Andrey Sokolov often made several versions or "concepts" of his paintings. This well-known fact is proved by numerous different versions of paintings made by Sokolov for stamps. See samples here.
"Space exploration", said Sokolov, "is the most impressive achievement of mankind; it's the forefront of human knowledge, the chief and the only theme of my artistic activity in space, the Universe, and cosmonautics."
Andrey Sokolov died in March 2007. His works are presented in many museums and private collections. For example, The National Air and Space Museum, a part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has the collection of works by Sokolov and Leonov.
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Provenance. The painting came from the estate of the other artist, who was also the member of Russian Union of Artists. He collaborated with Sokolov and Leonov in some projects. This artist asked not to publish his name or spread it anyway regardng this sale.
The exact date when the painting has been done is unknown, but it's supposely the same or earlier than the date of the earliest known publications.
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References. The information about publications of Sokolov paintings on postcards and in albums has been taken from online catalog of Sokolov and Leonov space fiction art by Yury Morozevich.
The information about use of Sokolov paintings for the stamps has been taken from online philatelistic blog of Yury Zubakin, named "Two parts of the whole. Fiction in philately".
I was also curious to find many samples of Sokolov paintings use here and here.
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Naming and caption.
The name for the painting has been taken from its back, or from online catalog of Yury Morozevich. If the name on the back side of the painting is not the same as the name in catalog, than the name on the back have been used as preferred.
The caption for the painting has been copied and translated from the albums and postcards, if exist. If not, the compilation of thoughts taken from different online sources have been used instead.
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Condition. The painting is in very good condition for its age. Of course, scratches, shabby edges, blots, dirty backs and unsticked paper are available, but generally speaking, this painting of the famous sci-fi artist is very good looking. See the supersized image for details. It has not been especially improved after shooting, except the right color balance and lens artefacts correction (edge distortions and vignetting).
The painting will be carefully packaged for shipping.
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