National Air and Space Museum 2020 Trophy Awarded to Charles Elachi and the Hubble Space Telescope Team

Museum Renames Prestigious Award to Honor Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins

Honoring Astronaut Michael Collins’ legacy in aviation and space, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is renaming its trophy for the Apollo 11 command module pilot. The recognition is awarded annually for Lifetime and Current Achievements. The 2020 recipients are Charles Elachi for Lifetime Achievement and the Hubble Space Telescope Team for Current Achievement. The recipients will receive their awards March 26 at a ceremony at the museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

The National Air and Space Museum Trophy event is made possible through the support of Atlas Air Worldwide, BAE Systems Inc., Blue Origin, Booz Allen Hamilton, The Claude Moore Charitable Foundation, Jacobs, Leidos, National Air Traffic Controllers Association, National Business Aviation Association, Pratt & Whitney, Seabury Capital, Sierra Nevada Corp. and Thales.

Established in 1985, the award recognizes outstanding achievements in the fields of aerospace science and technology and their history. Trophy winners receive a miniature version of “The Web of Space,” a sculpture by artist John Safer. The renaming of the trophy recognizes Collins’ contributions to aerospace and his service to the museum as director during a critical time in its evolution.

“The Web of Space” sculpture by John Safer. A miniature version of this sculpture is given to the National Air and Space Museum’s Michael Collins Trophy winners every year.

“I am deeply honored to have been made a part of the museum’s legacy recognizing the best in the aerospace industry,” said Michael Collins. “The National Air and Space Museum is a testament to thousands who helped craft it into the wonder it is today. I hope the award inspires future generations to keep reaching outward bound.”

2020 Michael Collins Trophy Recipients

Elachi will receive the 2020 Michael Collins Trophy for Lifetime Achievement honoring his distinguished career in the fields of remote sensing, planetary science and spaceflight-program management. After pioneering techniques in radar remote sensing for surface, ocean and atmospheric phenomena, he executed these techniques in leadership roles in various missions. He was the director for space and Earth sciences for almost 20 years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), and the director of JPL for 15. Under his leadership, JPL achieved many successful planetary, earth and astronomy missions including several Mars lander, rover and orbiter missions, pioneering missions to outer planets, such as the Cassini mission to Saturn, and the Spitzer and Kepler Space Telescopes. The breadth of his expertise allowed synergy between the technical aspects of radar remote sensing and the interpretation of the acquired science data, which is now a standard approach in Earth and planetary science. Through this lifetime of success, he has also served as a significant mentor to many in industry and academia.

Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum logo

As the Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its 30th year in operation, the team behind Hubble will receive the 2020 Collins Trophy for Current Achievement. Hubble has changed humans’ fundamental understanding of the universe, having taken over 1.4 million observations and provided data that astronomers have used to write more than 17,000 peer-reviewed scientific publications on a broad range of topics. Through the efforts of the Hubble team since 2018, the observatory has continued to produce science unachievable with any other instrument, including studies of the first possible moon orbiting a planet outside the solar system, imaging the first known interstellar object to visit the solar system and finding water vapor on an extrasolar planet in the habitable zone. System engineers in Hubble’s control center and science operations facility have continued to find creative ways to operate the 30-year-old spacecraft to make this revolutionary science possible and ensuring its capabilities will continue for years to come.

The National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is located at 655 Jefferson Dr. The museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is located in Chantilly, Virginia, near Washington Dulles International Airport. Both facilities are open daily from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. (closed Dec. 25). Admission is free, but there is a $15 fee for parking before 4 p.m. at the Udvar-Hazy Center.

More information about the Michael Collins Trophy and a complete list of past winners are available at https://airandspace.si.edu/trophy-award.

Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Examines the Life and Work of Robert Blackburn and Printmaking in the United States

Tour Launches at Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City, Missouri, March 28

A new exhibition exploring the life and work of artist Robert Blackburn, whose innovation and masterful expertise with the medium helped define the overall aesthetic of the American graphics “boom,” will debut at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, March 28. “Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking,” curated by Deborah Cullen, is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in cooperation with the Trust for Robert Blackburn and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts’ Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Program. The exhibition will remain on view through Aug. 2 before continuing an eight-city national tour through 2022.

Robert Blackburn, Girl in Red, 1950. 18 ¼ x 12 ½ inches, Color Lithograph. The Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art.

Blackburn was a key artist in the development of printmaking in the United States. He became known as an influential teacher and master printer, engaging with avant-garde artistic ideas while promoting a new collaborative approach to a traditional medium. The exhibition traces Blackburn’s artistic evolution alongside the original prints of other iconic 20th-century American artists with whom he collaborated.

“The exhibition brings together a variety of works that highlights the prolific life of an artist and a skilled technical printmaker who openly shared his knowledge with the community, providing an open graphics studio for artists of diverse social and economic backgrounds, ethnicities, styles and levels of expertise,” said Myriam Springuel, director of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and Smithsonian Affiliations.

Blackburn was born to Jamaican immigrants Dec. 10, 1920, and raised in Harlem, New York, during the Harlem Renaissance, an unparalleled flourishing of the arts centered in New York City’s creative black community. The arts were considered crucial to the well-being of society as well as a fertile medium for activism, and these values resonated with Blackburn throughout his life and work. In 1947, he founded a printmaking workshop as a welcoming space where artists of any level could learn and create together, and it remains in operation to this day. Blackburn’s art gradually shifted from figurative work to highly colored abstraction, creating a fascinating and engaging body of work.

“Robert Blackburn help forge a modernist graphic aesthetic, producing work of astonishing relevance for more than 60 years,” Cullen said. “He also directed the oldest and largest artist-run print workshop in the United States, welcoming thousands of artists from around the world.”

“Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking” celebrates both the artist and the democratic, diverse and creative community that he created. It features approximately 60 works, including lithographs, woodcut, intaglio and watercolors by Blackburn and the artists with whom he collaborated, including Grace Hartigan, Robert Rauschenberg, Elizabeth Catlett and Romare Bearden, among others. The exhibition is supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and funding from the Smithsonian’s Provost Office.

The Museum at FIT Announces Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style Exhibition

Now Accepting Donations for the MFIT Hip Hop Style Archive

#50yearsofhiphopstyle

The year 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip hop, and to commemorate the occasion, The Museum at FIT (MFIT) will present Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style (February–April 2023), an exhibition that examines the roots and history of hip hop fashion from inception to the present time. This exhibition will explore several themes, such as the transition of hip hop from the ‘hood to the runway; luxury and designer influence; the impact of hip hop celebrities on the fashion industry; and the growth of hip hop style as an international phenomenon. Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style is made possible by the support of The Couture Council.

FIT Logo (PRNewsfoto/Fashion Institute of Technology)

“For 50 years, hip hop has made its mark on U.S. culture and the world,” says Elena Romero, exhibition co-curator and assistant professor, Advertising and Marketing Communications at FIT. “It is the perfect time to exhibit, examine, and celebrate the contributions of our youth and people of color who ignited a multibillion-dollar industry, once considered a passing fad.” Romero has extensively chronicled hip hop fashion as a journalist, author, and scholar. She is the author of Free Stylin’: How Hip Hop Changed the Fashion Industry and has been featured in several documentaries on the subject, including Fresh Dressed and The Remix: Hip Hop X Fashion.

“The Museum at FIT has established the Hip Hop Style Archive in preparation for our big 2023 exhibition,” says Dr. Valerie Steele, director of MFIT. “We have already acquired some important pieces—ranging from Dapper Dan to Chanel—but we are dedicated to finding much more material that will elucidate a very important cultural phenomenon.” The archive, founded in 2019 in recognition of the importance of hip hop style in the 20th and 21st centuries, is a continually growing collection within The Museum at FIT’s permanent holdings and is comprised predominantly of male and female garments, footwear, and related accessories. It includes works from a range of designers, including American sportswear and luxury designers, European luxury brands, and most significantly, works by designers of color, particularly African American and Latinx designers who helped initiate hip hop style’s international success.

MFIT is currently seeking and accepting donations of objects to continue to build the Hip Hop Style Archive and to accurately represent hip hop fashion in the upcoming Fresh, Fly and Fabulous exhibition. If you wish to donate an object, please click here to submit your information through an online form.

Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style will be supported by an advisory committee made up of experts from the fields of fashion, music, journalism, academia, and education. The exhibition will be organized and co-curated by Romero and Elizabeth Way, assistant curator of Costume at The Museum of FIT.