First

Congratulations on your sale!

Congratulations!!!

congrats!

Congratulations on this sale; awesome work Cliff! jd

A wonderful image :-) vf

Hi Jim, in '57 I was eleven, my father had the whole ham radio set up, he even built a separate knotty pine walled room with world maps and peoples call numbers. To a young mind like mine, the sounds from that radio took me all around the world and into space. The codes, the clicks, the beeps and far off foreign voices, a wonderful time for adventure and imagination. It was commissioned by Harcourt Brace out of Florida, a textbook publisher, this was one in a cluster of small paintings about firsts. I did quite a few small paintings for them.

Hi Cliff.... I was in what was then called "junior high" at the time and was very interested in "ham" radio. Our school's amateur radio club was able to pick up the beep, beep signal... it was thrilling. If I recall right, I believe it was about the size of a basketball. Was this a commissioned illustration... if so, for who?

Yup!! Thats what it looked like. Thank you Pat for the compliment!! Sputnik 1 was launched in October of 1957, I don't remember how big it was or how much it weighed, but the antennas were something like 7 to 9 feet long....

Really? That's what it looked like? Well, I'm old enough to remember, guess I don't -- it seems like a bizarre contraption. The painting, of course, is beautiful, colorful, amazing!