Alan Bean

BiographyAlan Bean is an artist, as well as a former Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 12 and the fourth person to step onto the Moon, he later commanded Skylab 3, spending 59 days in orbit around Earth. Having painted earthbound subjects for years, he turned to the “beautifully desolate” Ocean of Storms and the view of our fragile blue planet as his central motifs, exploring the tension between memory and documentation, Earth and Moon, realism and the material evidence of exploration. His canvases often focus on scenes many know only from photographs, namely footprints, tools, horizons, but rendered with the authority of someone who was there. In 1981, he left NASA to devote himself fully to celebrating Apollo through art. His practice blends painting and subtle relief, textured with his lunar tools and embedded with small fragments from the Apollo 12 spacecraft and a touch of moondust, inviting viewers to look closely and imagine the human stories behind our giant leaps.

Person TypeIndividual