Moon landing's 50th anniversary inspires New Forest artist Will

TO MARK the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing today (Saturday), Lymington artist Will Rochfort has created a new work inspired by the Apollo 11 astronauts’ victory parade through New York.

The oil painting, which took around three months to complete, is the third in a series depicting celebrations surrounding the space race.

Speaking from his Lymington workshop, Will said: “I have always been fascinated with the space race and it falls right in the era that I love to paint – 1960s Americana.

“I knew that I didn’t want to paint the rocket or the launch itself but the hysteria and excitement surrounding it. At the time it was so huge – the biggest news in the world.”

Will’s first painting on the theme depicted the crowd gathered in Florida for the launch of Apollo 11, and the second was posed at a barber shop in Lymington as customers received news of the moon landing over the radio.

This image, entitled One Small Step for Man, measures 6ft across and is the most complicated and challenging Will has ever undertaken. It was recently exhibited at Heathrow Airport’s T5 Gallery with a price tag of £26,000.

Will said: “This painting did take more research and preparation than anything I have ever done. It was actually posed outside my workshop in Lymington – I had the car, one motorcycle, one horse and about 10 people who I moved around for different shots.

"I was able to find some images of Fifth Avenue and I combined it with all my photos to create this one composition.”

The subjects in the picture are Will’s friends and family, who regularly pose for his images. He said: “My paintings are snapshots of moments in time, often idealised and always entirely staged using my friends and family as models.

"I see myself as the director, shaping my chosen scene until I am happy and then using this as a groundwork to start painting.

“The three men in the car are not actually the astronauts, it is just a representation of them. I love the fact that the whole painting was posed here in Lymington.”

He was also inspired by images in the 2016 film Hidden Figures about the black female mathematicians that worked for NASA during the Space Race.

“I knew that the 50th anniversary of the moon landings was coming up this July so I started working on the painting and finished late last year,” said Will. “It really was one of the biggest accomplishments of human endeavour – and people are really nostalgic about that era of American history.”

Will has been painting full-time since 2010 and has sold his work to clients in Saudi Arabia, America, India, Switzerland, France and across the UK. Many of his images feature classic cars, people, paparazzi and black-and-white copies of the A&T.

For more information on Will’s work, visit www.williamrochfort.com or follow him on Instagram @willrochfortart.