PBS series probes moon museum caper

  • June 08, 2010 16:31

  • Email
PBS' History Detectives investigates whether artwork by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg and other major artists is on the moon, and releases a special online video asking for help in locating the elusive Grumman engineer "John F.," who purportedly smuggled the "Moon Museum" aboard Apollo 12 in November 1969. Pictured here is an identical ceramic mini-canvas, which sparked the story after Tampa, FL art curator Jade Dellinger purchased the curious piece in an online auction. PH

Did a tiny art museum secretly get launched to the moon? Evidence is emerging that a miniscule piece of pop art got smuggled aboard the Apollo 12 lunar module in 1969. The ceramic chip was embedded with original sketches by six artists including Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Rauschenberg.

PBS' History Detectives is investigating the story in its season eight premiere, which airs June 21. Host Gwen Wright, a professor of architecture at Columbia University, interviews New York artist Forrest "Frosty" Myers whose idea it was to send the miniaturized museum to the moon.

The story began to unfold recently when Florida art curator Jade Dellinger purchased an identical mini-canvas at an online auction and contacted PBS.

The doodles---from a minimalist line by Rauschenberg to a Mickey Mouse rendition by Oldenburg---were supposedly shrunk to chip-size then placed aboard the Apollo 12 by a mysterious Grumman engineer named "John F.".

PBS is asking viewers to help unravel the whole story, begin by watching the online video at www.pbs.org/HistoryDetectives.

 


  • Email

More News Feed Headlines

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) Sunset, 1830-5.

After 13 Years, ARTFIXdaily to Cease Daily News Service

  • ArtfixDaily / August 15th, 2022

ARTFIXdaily will end weekday e-newsletter service after 13 years of publishing art world press releases, events and ...

Read More...
Einar and Jamex de la Torre, Critical Mass, 2002 (Courtesy of the Cheech Marin Collection and Riverside Art Museum).

Inaugural Exhibition at The Cheech Highlights Groundbreaking Chicano Artists

  • ArtfixDaily / July 7th, 2022

One of the nation’s first permanent spaces dedicated to showcasing Chicano art and culture opened on June ...

Read More...
Jacob Lawrence,.  .  .  is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?—Patrick Henry,1775 , Panel 1, 1955, from Struggle: From the History of the American People, 1954–56, egg tempera on hardboard.  Collection of Harvey and Harvey-Ann Ross.  © 2022 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Crystal Bridges Explores the U.S. Constitution Through Art in New Exhibition 'We the People: The Radical Notion of Democracy'

  • ArtfixDaily / July 7th, 2022

Original print of the U.S. Constitution headlines exhibition sponsored by Ken Griffin (who purchased it for $43.2 ...

Read More...
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989), Christ of St John of the Cross, 1951, oil on canvas © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection

Dalí / El Greco Side-by-Side Exhibit Prompts: 'Are They Really Paintings of the Same Thing?'

  • ArtfixDaily / July 6th, 2022

From July 9 to December 4, 2022, The Auckland Project in the U.K. will unite two Spanish masterpieces from British ...

Read More...

Related Press Releases

Related Events

Goto Calendar