Chesley Bonestell

Bonestell was trained as an architect. In the 1930s he worked on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, doing engineering drawings. He then moved to Hollywood where he became a matte artist, doing background and special effects paintings. Within a few years he was earning $1500 per month at this. In 1944 he did a series of astronomical paintings for Life magazine, showing with photographic realism views that might be seen on and around other planets. This sort of work, along with science-fictional subjects, became his main specialty thereafter, for books and magazines as well as the movies.