Arty Farty Friday ~ Rocketeer & Artist Frank Malina

It' s interesting when art and science meet in the same individual - Frank Malina is a good example. He was born this day, 2 October in 1912, in Brenham, Texas, son of
son of Czech immigrants Frank Malina, a musician, and Caroline Marek.

From: Frank Malina - America's Forgotten Rocketeer by James L. Johnson:

What makes Malina’s story all the more compelling is that he was a man of great contradictions: A professed pacifist, he nevertheless designed powerful rockets to further the war effort. A communist sympathizer, he made a fortune through his stake in Aerojet. A consummate engineer, he opted to abandon his research career while still in his 30s and would eventually dedicate himself full-time to artistic pursuits. And yet, this sometimes deeply conflicted individual did more than anyone to legitimize the pursuit of rocket propulsion and to pave the way for others to pursue their paths to the stars.

Like most of the early rocketeers, Malina was drawn to the subject because rockets meant space travel. Born in 1912 in the tiny town of Brenham, Texas, Malina as a boy devoured Jules Verne’s classic From the Earth to the Moon, which vividly imagined an extraterrestrial trip. Even as an adolescent, Malina had an engineer’s mind-set. In a college essay on interplanetary travel, he enumerated the great difficulties that would need to be overcome, including the vast distances to traverse, the hostile atmosphere upon arrival, and the lack of any means of communication between that distant point and Earth.

And from an obituary and biography at langlois.org HERE

Dr. Malina was a rare combination of scientist-artist-editor-humanist. He was internationally famous for his work on early rocket development, his pioneering contribution to Kinetic Art, his creation and development of the journal Leonardo, and his lifelong efforts to promote international cooperation in science and technology and the visual arts.

Frank J. Malina obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University in 1934. He became interested in rocket engineering in the 1930s, when rocketry and space travel were scoffed at as "science-fiction dreams". He obtained his Ph.D. in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech)  in 1940 with a thesis on rocket propulsion and rocket flight. In 1994, he was a co-founder, with the noted aeronautical engineer, Theodore von Kármán, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California), and was its first director from 1944 to 1946. He conceived and directed the design, construction and testing of the United States' first successful high altitude sounding rocket, the WAC Corporal (White Sands, New Mexico, 1944-1945). From 1947 to 1953 he worked at UNESCO, Paris, as counsellor and head of the Division of Scientific Research. Until his death he was an active member of the International Astronautics Federation as well as the International Academy of Astronautics, both of which he helped to found. He was elected vice-president of the Academy of Astronautics in 1960 and president in 1963. He drew up a plan for a "Lunar International Laboratory" where astronauts, scientists and technologists from different countries could work together for peaceful purposes in space. He was awarded the French Prix d'Astronautique REP Hirsch in 1939, the C. M. Hickman award of the American Rocket Society in 1948, and the Order of Merit from the French Society for the Encouragement of Research and Invention in 1962.

Those persons who were fortunate to know Frank J. Malina, or work with him professionally, treasured their friendship for that modest, unassuming man whose entire life was guided by his respect for all peoples on earth regardless of race, religion or social condition. He had an abiding faith in human nature and the promise of international cooperation and international understanding as the best means to build the foundations of a lasting peace, and he bent all his efforts during the last 40 years of his life to promote those ideals in every way he could in science and the visual arts. He was truly a great Humanist, truly the International Man.

Dr Malina died in November 1981.

It's difficult to present his Kinetic artwork to good effect online. There are some videos at YouTube, but they're not really good enough. Two very brief samples are below, both of the same piece titled "Cosmos" created in 1965.

Regarding Dr Malina's artwork - see this article by Patrick McCray:

Malina was especially keen to introduce material from science and technology, particularly space exploration and astronomy, into contemporary visual arts. Even his early forays into painting incorporated “shock waves and fluid flow and paintings of airplanes and rockets.” As he moved away from traditional art techniques, Malina spent considerable time experimenting with new ways to create novel visual effects. In the mid-1950s, for example, Malina worked with a French electronics student to create what he called his Lumidyne technique. He made his first pieces using it in 1956.

ASTROLOGY

Frank Malina's natal chart - born 2 October 1912, in Brenham, Texas. Chart set for 12 noon, no time of birth available, so Moon's position and ascendant will not be accurate.

That Grand Trine linking Sun/Mercury (self and mental orientation) to Saturn (science) and to Uranus (invention, futuristic) forming a circuit in Air (well, one is Capricorn cuspy) signs says everything necessary about the rocketeering facet of his talent. His gravitation to art, and in particular to Kinetic Art is reflected, I think, in the opposition between Uranus (futuristic) and Neptune (creativity, imagination). This opposition of slow-moving planets was a generational alignment, but because Uranus links to personal planet Mercury by harmonious trine, and Neptune links to Mars and widely to Venus (planet of the arts) by less comfortable square aspects, the opposition is specifically drawn in to Malina's personality. Venus in square aspect to both Uranus and Neptune, perhaps loses some of the square aspect's sting because Neptune in late Cancer echoes the Watery element of Venus in Scorpio; and Uranus in Earthy Capricorn's last degree isn't totally alien to Scorpio Venus. That peculiar cuspy effect must be going on here.

The personality description given in a quote, above, bears repeating:

Those persons who were fortunate to know Frank J. Malina, or work with him professionally, treasured their friendship for that modest, unassuming man whose entire life was guided by his respect for all peoples on earth regardless of race, religion or social condition. He had an abiding faith in human nature and the promise of international cooperation and international understanding as the best means to build the foundations of a lasting peace, and he bent all his efforts during the last 40 years of his life to promote those ideals in every way he could in science and the visual arts. He was truly a great Humanist, truly the International Man.

Charming Libra Sun, quite possibly in trine to sociable Gemini Moon (can't be sure without time of birth), would cover much of that description. It does also sound very much like textbook descriptions of Aquarius - perhaps Aquarius was his rising sign.

I should also mention, after what came up from yesterday's post on Libra's fixed stars, that Dr Malina's Sun was conjunct Vindemiatrix - so... that star ain't always the herald of a harsh or difficult personality!