Retro-Future: To The Stars!
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"QUANTUM SHOT" #322link
Rare & Beautiful Vintage Visions of the Future
This is the start of a new series, collection of the most inspiring & hard-to-find retro-futuristic graphics. We will try to stay away from the well-known American pulp & book cover illustrations and instead will focus on the artwork from rather unlikely sources: Soviet & Eastern Bloc "popular tech & science" magazines, German, Italian, British fantastic illustrations and promotional literature - all from the Golden Age of Retro-Future (from 1930s to 1970s). Click to enlarge most images.
(source: TM-1970, Russia)
("Galactic Manoeuvre", by Nikolai Nedbailo)
(source: TM-1953, Russia)
(source: TM-1956, Russia)
(image credit: retro-futurismus.de)
Part 1. Space never looked better... and perhaps never will
Retro-futuristic art, in a way, is a double-fantasy: imaginary future wrapped in imaginary past. Which makes this style doubly interesting, if not doubly obsolete... In this part we will showcase rarely seen art, done in 1930s to 1970s, mostly from "Teknika Molodezhi" (TM), Yuny Tekhnik, DetGiz (Russia) and German retro-future sites.
Earth's Orbit:
(TM cover, Russia, 1950)
(images credit: Klaus Burgle)
"Breaking a Space Traffic Jam" by Frank Tinsley, 1959
(image credit: plan59.com)
To the Moon!
(art by Noel Sickles for "Rocket to the Moon", 1949)
"To Other Worlds!", Detgiz, Russia, 1939
"Lunar Unicycle" by Frank Tinsley, 1959
(image credit: plan59.com)
(image credit: Klaus Burgle)
(TM cover, Russia 1953)
(source: TM, Russia)
"Nuclear Rocketship" by Frank Tinsley, 1959
(image credit: plan59.com)
"Destination Moon" rare art, 1950
(image credit: Erik Theodor Lässig, Germany)
Bigger Moon base:
(source: TM, Russia)
(image credit: Kurt Röschl)
(art by Ed Emshwiller)
To Mars!
(art by Andrey Sokolov)
(TM cover, Russia 1966)
"Mars Snooper" by Frank Tinsley, 1959
(image credit: plan59.com)
To Venus!
Battling off the Communist astronaut invasion!
(Perry Rhodan, Jan. 1962)
Interesting Planetary Vehicle:
(very strange flip-flop caterpillar style of moving)
(source: TM, Russia 1966)
To Saturn and beyond:
(TM cover, Russia 1954)
Other Worlds
Screens from the Russian science fiction movie "Planeta Bur" (The Planet of Storms) - 1959:
(image credit: woodmal)
This is a collage with promotional art from this movie, made by o-vladimir:
(image credit: o-vladimir)
(image credit: Klaus Burgle)
(art by Andrey Sokolov)
(art by Nikolai Nedbailo)
("First Contact", by Nikolai Nedbailo)
Space Lift Concept
(from TM, Russia, 1971)
(source: TM, Russia 1970)
Retro-future Chart of Starships
(from TM, Russia 1955)
(source: TM, Russia 1960)
"Socialist Space Workers" by Gennady Golobokov, 1973
(source: TM, Russia 1973)
Photon Starships in Deep Space:
(art by Andrey Sokolov)
Let us know of other rare & unusual futurist art; next issue will be devoted to the architectural and transportation retro-future visions.
CONTINUE TO NEXT PART
Permanent Link...
Category: Art,Vintage
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31 Comments:
Lovely images. Are the linked version supposed to be private on Flickr? I'd love to see bigger versions.
Why do I have to log into flickr? Isn't there a way to see your photos without getting an account of my own?
If you can fix this I'd be thrilled.
Very cool! I have 40-50 old Perry Rhodans and have long thought it would be great to scan them and share them with the internets. Maybe someday. Thanks for sharing!
I even set up an account on Dark Roasted Blend to try to view the photos on Flickr but they were still private!
sorry guys, I unlocked the images :0
it was a glitch.
Oh, these are just gorgeous. I could cover a wall with them!
Great stuff!
The one by Ed Emshwiller, with the guy in a red space suit and the girl holding a doll behind him, not suited up, with the lunar landscape visible outside, lookes like an illustration I've never seen before for Heinlein's "Have SPacesuit, Will Travel."
It looks to me like Kip and Peewee with Madame Pompadour.
Very nice illustrations. Interesting to note Soviet symbols (flags, stars, etc.) figure prominently in some of the artwork. Nevertheless I suspect not a few Soviet artists were drawn to science fiction since it provided a respite from dreary socialist realism and also a chance to cover normally forbidden subjects (note that several of the magazine covers were produced during the 1930's-1950's, while Stalin was in power).
That one, mostly in black and orange with a rocket on the right and a moon crawler on the left; from retro-futurismus.
Looks like something Batman would own -- the Bat-rocket and the Bat-moonmobile.
Re:Newscaper.
Iirc, that illustration was from the magazine serialization of Have Spacesuit... I first saw it probably 20 years ago, at least. Nice to see it again.
Wonderful selection! Thanks so much.
Noel Sickles for "Rocket to the Moon", 1949; pretty decent look at cramped conditions in such a rocket.
"To Other Worlds!", Detgiz, Russia, 1939 - Is that the moon? Again, no obvious problems with it. The craters are done well.
"Mars Snooper" by Frank Tinsley, 1959 - Has nothing to do with Mars. The planet, or moon, in the sky doesn't look like Mars or Deimos or Phobos. The planet in the foreground has channels - which might make it Mars, viewed at night.
(Perry Rhodan, Jan. 1962) - ah yes, the old jungle volcanic Venus. Clark Ashton Smith had a couple of 'em. So did Asimov. At least they were right about the volcanos. "The air you breathe is a poisonous flame, not with ten thousand men could you do this"
(TM cover, Russia 1954) - A non-Titan moon of Saturn. Rhea? Dione? Those midsized moons have large cracks in 'em. So far this gets my "realism" award (the Moon-shots being disqualified because - well, everyone knew what going to the Moon would be like). Mind you I don't know the moons' axial tilt vs. Saturn's ecliptic.
art by Nikolai Nedbailo - looks more like "art from FiendFolio". That is a lot of ugly.
"First Contact", by Nikolai Nedbailo - Nedbailo takes three tabs of acid, grabs a paintbrush.
And more wackiness to follow.
Thanks for the pics!
Perry Rhodan is German, not Russian.
Wow! That were astounding!
Very nice post, I liked this blog!
The picture of the painting by Art Emshwiller is cover art to Robert Heinlein's 1958 novel Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, showing Kip Russel in the foreground with Peewee in the background. It was the cover art for the August 1958 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, where the serialization of the novel appeared.
Did anyone else notice that the back cover art for ELO's album Out of the Blue looks a lot like Klaus Burgle's work? Anyone know if there's a connection?
Magusxxx: good observation!
... i love that ELO album :)
Is it possible to purchase a print of "Galactic Manoeuvre" by Nikolai Nedbailo? Who/what should one contact about that?
Love the 'Socialist Space Workers' image, so... wistful and optimistic.
check out clip of a tv sci-fi sitcom pilot w/same feel --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57o0USuiYBw
The second picture after "Bigger Moon base," showing the Earth in the sky, a tall rocket, and a streamlined Moon crawler, looks to me like the style of Alex Schomburg.
Actually, one of those isn't a "classic" - it was my first piece I ever did in Photoshop, must be about 12 years ago now. It's the one with the rocket on the moon with the open hatch and the moon buggy in the foreground. I've always been meaning to redo it.
Nice. Now if only a lot of the older eastern block science fiction movies would become more readily available I would be happy.
http://cool-mo-dee.blogspot.com/
I love Russia
Loved these pix but am really surprised, given the time they were done, that there wasn't more in the way of propagandizing Soviet Russia's logos and imagery on the space vehicles...e.g., red stars or CCCP on the spaceships, etc.
Aah, love this sort of stuff.
Does anybody else remember seeing a series of ads by BF Goodrich in Reader's Digest around, I don't know, early 1970s maybe? They had some quite futuristic pictures, featuring vehicles with amazing fat tyres, that left me quite impressed at that tender age.
absolute win
i actually owned some of these magazines! in soviet union they were sure they will be able to land and live on mars by 1980 ( i was sure about that too when i was a kid :D )
Wow! Amazing images, thanks posting.
Bob: thanks for linking to it
Cheers!
Is "Retro-future Chart of Starships"
very best
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