The first artist in the Universe

Today the whole world celebrates the International Day of Human Space Flight, and in Russia it is Cosmonautics Day. On April 12, 1961, mankind’s most daring dream came true: gravity was overcome, and man went into space. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. On the Vostok 1 ship he circled the Earth in 108 minutes.

Four years later, on March 18, 1965, another Russian cosmonaut, Alexei Leonov, made his first spacewalk. His stay in space lasted 12 minutes and 9 seconds.

Leonov dreamed of becoming an artist. I entered the Academy of Arts in Riga, but there was no dormitory there, and an out-of-town student needed it. The hostel was found in an aviation school. And he became an astronaut. Throughout his life, Leonov was engaged in painting. Below you will find a documentary film by Roscosmos about the first artist in space.

After his spacewalk, Leonov said:

“The picture of the cosmic abyss that I saw, with its grandeur, immensity, brightness of colors and sharp contrasts of pure darkness with the dazzling radiance of the stars, simply amazed and enchanted me.”

In 1975, Leonov became the commander of the Soviet crew on the first joint space mission with the United States, Apollo-Soyuz (ASTR). He brought colored pencils and paper with him to the board to draw the Earth from space and create portraits of his colleagues.

The astronaut states:

“The discovery of space and work in space should serve the people of the whole world. I have been in space, I see and feel obligated to share my vision of space through art."

And Alexey Leonov became the first artist in the Universe and the most “experienced” space painter.

His paintings have been sold at auctions, including Sotheby's. They can be seen in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. And some of them were written together with another science fiction artist Andrei Sokolov.