Frank J. Malina (1912-1981): Kinetic Multiple 982

Artist
Frank J. Malina (1912–1981)
 
Title
Kinetic Multiple 982
 
Medium
Mixed media
 
Material
Paper
 
Dimensions
28 x 25 cm
 
Editor
Edition Panderma, Basel
 
Year
1966
 
Signature
Signed, dated, numbered and named in pencil (Ed. 150 ex.)
 
Provenance
Edition Panderma, Carl Laszlo, Basel
Galerie von Bartha, Basel
Private Collection, Basel
 
Condition / Restauration
Mint archival condition
 
Biography
Frank J. Malina (1912–1981) led one of the twentieth century's most remarkable double lives, achieving distinction first as a pioneering rocket scientist and later as an innovator of kinetic and light art. Born in Brenham, Texas, to a family of Czech-Moravian descent, he studied mechanical engineering at Texas A&M before earning his doctorate at the California Institute of Technology under Theodore von Kármán. At Caltech his rocketry experiments laid the foundations of what would become NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, of which he served as the second director.
 
Disenchanted with the militarisation of rocket research, Malina left aeronautics in the late 1940s and settled in Paris, working for UNESCO before devoting himself entirely to art. He brought an engineer's precision to the emerging field of kinetic art, developing his patented "Lumidyne" system in which electric light, motorised rotating elements and painted screens combined to produce slowly shifting compositions of colour and movement. In 1968 he founded Leonardo, the influential journal dedicated to the intersection of art, science and technology, which continues today.
 
Malina's prints and multiples translate the optical rhythms of his light machines onto paper, distilling his lifelong fascination with motion, geometry and cosmic order into static yet vibrant images.