“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
                                                                            John F Kennedy, September 12, 1962

Astronaut and artist Alan Bean is not only the first artist to paint a world other than our Earth who actually went there, he is the first in history to paint our Earth after viewing it from space. His art’s significance as the original human interpretative record of man’s first off-world experience will only increase in its importance and value over time.
Those of us who were lucky enough to be alive during the Apollo program look at Bean’s art and share the stirring of emotion, pride, and the sense of awe that we experienced as we lived through the fulfillment of President Kennedy’s challenge. The whole world (the artist’s “fellow earthlings”) can now look up at the moon in the night’s sky and know that human beings were once there looking back at us.
“Over the years I changed my profession from NASA astronaut to space artist,” says Alan Bean. “I have created several paintings of earth and in the years since the Apollo 12 mission, my astronaut eyes have gradually been replaced with artist eyes. I now see the Earth in my mind’s eye as much brighter than recorded by our cameras,” he says about A Jewel in the Heavens, “and I paint the Earth in bolder colors now.” This Fine Art Giclee Canvas not only takes us off this Earth to look back upon it in the company of an Apollo astronaut, it is a ticket back to one of the most fulfilling times in our lives.

The work of artist Alan Bean conveys the sense of space travel not only through subject and color but also texture. The tools that once helped him explore the moon, now help him put the moon’s stamp on many of his paintings. Prior to painting the image, Bean covers the painting’s surface with a texturing material. He then uses exact replicas of his Moon boots to make footprints across this surface that are just like all the Apollo boot prints remaining on the moon today. Next he uses the same geology hammer he worked with on the Apollo 12 mission to dig into the painting’s surface. Finally, a sharp edged bit from one of the core tubes is used to make round indentations in the surface.
“I guess every astronaut wanted to be the first man on the Moon. I know I did,” says Alan Bean. “And if we couldn't be the first, we at least wanted to be one of the first. Apollo 11’s crew got the opportunity to make the first attempt. Neil, Buzz and Mike flew a perfect flight and went into the history books; but all 400,000 Americans that helped make Apollo a success are in that history, too.
“I think this painting is exactly how Astronaut Neil Armstrong looked as he took the now-iconic photo of his lunar companion, Buzz Aldrin,” says the artist. “It is the image we would see in Buzz’s gold visor in my painting First Men¯Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin¯if we could look close enough.”

"I have painted Pete Conrad and myself 239,000 miles from Earth during the Apollo XII mission, standing on the Ocean of Storms, looking homeward. Pete and I had come a long way together. He is the best astronaut I have ever known. As we looked up, the sky was a deep shiny black. As I touched Pete's shoulder I thought, can all the people we know or have seen or heard about actually be up on that tiny blue and white marble? It was a wondrous moment."
Countersigned by Charles "Pete" Conrad

This summer the world will celebrate the 40th Anniversary of man’s first walk on the moon and your Greenwich Workshop Authorized Dealer has a room full of historic open and limited edition fine art at their fingertips for your gift giving and home or office display. Greenwich Workshop Artist and Apollo Astronaut Alan Bean will be the subject of a one-man show at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum featuring forty of Bean’s original drawings and paintings from July 16, 2009 until January 13, 2010. Some of these Apollo inspired paintings are available in Fine Art Limited Editions, many with historic counter-signers in addition to Astronaut and Artist Alan Bean.
In July 2009, Smithsonian Books will publish Painting Apollo: First Artist on Another World, to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The Greenwich Workshop will produce this very limited Collectors Edition diptych and signed, slipcased book. Artist Alan Bean’s diptych portrays Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as they erect and salute the American flag on the surface of the Moon. It is a moment that will live in history forever, and in the collective memories of the millions of people who saw it live on television. There was so much to celebrate! We, the United States of America, had won a very real race to show which country could land men on the Moon and return them safely to Earth. This amazing achievement demonstrated the collective will and capability of over 400,000 American men and women doing their jobs with care and precision.
COLLECTOR'S EDITION includes:
A Distant Celebration Diptych
Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Giclée Canvases:
(above left:) Rendering Honors 13" x 16" initialed by artist
(above right:) Planting Our Colors 13" x 16" s/n
plus the slipcased book
Painting Apollo: First Artist on Another World
with contributors including renown art critic Donald Kuspit and NASA Flight Director Eugene Kranz.
Trim size: 11 x 10, 224 pgs, 107 paintings.
with a specially-designed tip-in sheet signed by the artist.
limited to 225 s/n