Ron Miller on Bonestell at io9

io9 may not need my signal boost but no fan will want to miss Ron Miller’s fine piece on Chesley Bonestell, The Artist Who Helped Invent Space Travel. Accompanying it are many classic examples of Bonestell’s astronomicals. There also were some biographical insights that were new to me —

 In 1938, Bonestell began a new career in Hollywood as a spe­cial effects matte painter. The first film he worked on was Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane. All the views of turn-of-the-century New York and of Charles Foster Kane’s mansion, Xan­adu, are Bonestell’s artwork. In The Fountainhead, Bonestell in a sense was Howard Roark: all of the buildings created by Ayn Rand’s superheroic architect are by Bonestell. He eventually became Hollywood’s highest-paid matte artist.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the link.]