Saturday, May 5, 2012

RR Autograph Auctions Gordon Cooper Original Cooper suit portrait by NASA employee Ron Woods


Artist who was formally a NASA suit technician supporting the early shuttle missions. During the Apollo program Woods worked for ILC as a suit technician performing suit maintenance, interface testing with the Command Module, Lunar Module, and Lunar Rover vehicles, and insertion of astronauts in Command and Lunar modules for training. He suited crewmembers for Apollo 8, 11, 15, all Skylab missions, and Apollo Soyuz. He also assisted engineering in the development of the Shuttle suit components. Since 1982, he has worked in the Flight Crew Systems Facility at KSC with responsibilities in processing flight hardware for the Space Shuttle Crew module and payload bay. This includes pre-flight testing of hardware and post-flight testing. Equipment includes EVA and Launch/Entry suits, camera equipment, food, clothing, flight data files, contingency tools, and mission specific tools for Hubble upgrades. An amazingly beautiful original watercolor painting of Gordon Cooper’s Mercury spacesuit, showing a light reflection of Alan Shepard, on a 10 x 13 sheet of Arches, 140 lb. cold press paper. The wonderfully detailed image shows Cooper’s flight suit, complete with gloves, with the name tag and NASA ‘meatball’ logo visible, with the helmet hanging off the suit’s right arm. Signed in the lower right in pencil, “Ron Woods 2010.” In fine condition, with just some slight rippling to bottom edge. According to Woods, the painting is based on reference photographs of Cooper’s suit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center. He can offer no definitive explanation for how the reflection of Shepard got into the photos, as the angles did not match up. Woods also states that the painting was done using a magnifier to ensure each accurate detail to the suit. A scarce opportunity to own an original piece from an artist who enjoyed a unique inside perspective. RRAuction COA.  

http://preview.rrauction.com/bidtracker_detail.cfm?IN=140

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