This brilliantly colored abstraction was commissioned in 1975 to commemorate the opening of the National Air and Space Museum. It actually depicts a skillful composite of photographs taken from Apollo 13 on its way to the moon, describing the globe's curvature shown in magenta.

Other photos taken from weather satellites include Washington, D.C., and show the jagged edges of New York and Long Island Sound, and the craggy contour of Maine and Cape Cod, which merge into the blue-green sea. The artist hand printed this serigraph in 22 colors, and cut the stencils and drew on the screens with tusche.

Nancy Graves (1940-1995, Pittsfield, Massachusetts) was a painter, printmaker, stage designer, sculptor, and filmmaker. She received her B.A. from Vassar College and her B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the School of Art and Architecture at Yale.

Her works can be found at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Chicago Art Institute, the Walker Art Center, and museums in Cologne, Vienna, and Zurich.

Special Information: 22-color hand printed serigraph on White German etching paper, signed edition of 165. Sold unframed. Comes with certificate of authenticity from the Smithsonian.

Image Dimensions: 36 x 29 inches

Paper Dimensions: 38 ¾ x 32 inches

Produced by: Simca Print Artists

Other works in the Smithsonian Art Collectors Program by Nancy Graves:

View of Earth from the Air, 1975 - Poster