SERIES 8: ORIGINAL ART WORKS Box 48; 32 framed items
Browse the Original Art Works collection
The Original Art Works Series contains forty-four items dating from 1962 to 1998 collected by or given to John and Annie Glenn. Included in the series are oil and watercolor paintings, drawings in pencil, charcoal, or ink, art prints, etchings, a bas-relief sculpture, and a mosaic tile portrait of John Glenn. While professional artists produced many of these works of art, the majority of the items in the series are by amateurs of varying ability. Several of the paintings and drawings depict the "MiG Mad Marine" F-86 Sabre aircraft Glenn flew during the Korean War as an exchange pilot with the U.S. Air Force. Glenn's Friendship 7 spacecraft and other NASA spacecraft of the 1960s era are the subject in many of the other paintings and drawings. Also included are a variety of Japanese art prints and other works of art given to Glenn during his NASA goodwill trip to Japan in 1963. In addition, the series contains pen and ink drawings of President John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy given to the Glenns by Ethel Kennedy in the late 1960s.
Sixteen of the items in the series are paintings by folk artist Bernadine P. Stetzel of Fremont, Ohio. A personal favorite of Annie Glenn, many of Ms. Stetzel's paintings depict major events in John Glenn's life, such as the New York City ticker-tape parade held on March 1, 1962 to honor Glenn and the other Project Mercury astronauts, Glenn's speech to the 1976 Democratic National Convention, and his speech announcing his candidacy for president in April 1983.