With subjects ranging from an astronaut on the Moon to distant planets, Chris Calle is an artist whose Space Art can be seen as small a a 1” postage stamp or as large as a 10’ x 20’ foot mural.
Chris has designed more than 35 postage stamps for the United States and hundreds more for countries as diverse as Sweden and the Marshall Islands, as well as designs for the United Nations. Chris’s US postage stamp design work includes the two stamps in celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing jointly designed with his father Paul Calle who designed the iconic First Man on the Moon stamp in 1969. Perhaps Chris’s most well known artwork is the $2.40 Priority Mail stamp design of 1989, which depicts Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planting the American flag on the Moon.
During his 20+ years as an illustrator his artwork focused on historical subjects and the theme of Space Exploration produced in paint and pencil for publications, advertising, coins and philatelic First Day Covers.
As an official NASA artist, Chris covered two of the early Space Shuttle missions, producing artwork that is now in the collections of the National Air and Space Museum and NASA. His artwork is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian museums, Space and Science Museums throughout the United States, and corporate and private collections worldwide.
Today in his fine art career Calle’s oil paintings and pencil drawings focus on the history and future of manned space exploration.
Chris is the author of Celebrating Apollo 11, the Artwork of Paul Calle, which details Calle’s involvement in the NASA Fine Art Program and focuses on the on-the-spot artwork Paul created as the only artist present during the suiting up of the Apollo 11 crew on the morning of their historic launch to the Moon.
Chris portrayed his father Paul in the 2018 movie First Man, the story of Neil Armstrong. Chris sketched Ryan Gosling and the cast during the breakfast and crew walkout, using the same sketchbook and pens Paul used in 1969 while sketching the Apollo 11 crew during the morning of the launch in the crew breakfast and suiting up rooms.