Artist Profile: M. Alvarez

Who is (or was) M.E. Alvarez?

Alvarez was an illustrator at North American Rockwell.

Beyond that, we know nothing about the artist. Not even a first name. There’s probably a box, on a shelf, in a basement somewhere at Boeing with old NAR personnel files that holds a clue. Short of burglary, I can’t see a way to answer the question. HR departments are surprisingly reluctant to give out that kind of information.

I thought perhaps the artist chose to sobriquet or nom-de-guerre to create a firewall between his or her commercial work and a fine art career. It’s not unheard of, I know plenty of artists in animation who take the day job for the benefits and do fine art or illustration in their spare time. Sleuthing just muddies the water. Alvarez is a very common name in the art world, both in the Americas and in Europe. The first hit on Google is almost always the American painter Mabel Alvarez, and I can say with some authority it’s not her. Looking through auction sites at Mabel Alvarez work, I did find a painting attributed to her signed, “M. Alvarez ’98.” Mable died in 1985.

So, like the piece on John Gorsuch, all I can really do is lay out something like a timeline told through art, and hope you enjoy it.

Above: Apollo 15 launching a subsatellite in lunar orbit. Painted in 1970/71. Below: Contractor’s depiction of a satellite, circa 1970.

Mister Shuttle

When North American Rockwell became the prime contractor for the Shuttle Program in 1972, it’s art department created the lion’s share of shuttle related art during the seventies. In effect, that made Alvarez Mr. Shuttle.

Above: Painted in 1972 – a first glimpse of the orbiter. Below: 1973, Rockwell engineers consider stowing the SRMS in a hump over the cargo bay and fuselage.

By 1974, the orbiter starts to take a familiar form.

Below Left: Beautiful painting of a shuttle launch. Below Right: The same image found in The National Archives. It’s in poor shape, but un-cropped and in colour.

Above: Iconic Alvarez. Below: From the same year: two versions of the same painting, showing an orbiter with the ESA Spacelab installed.

Below: Final arrangement, painted sometime between 1975 and 1976 Bottom: N905NA still in American Airlines cheats.

Below: Third version of this painting I’ve found – and there may be more – Rockwell engineers start playing around with mascara.

I’ve not found any Shuttle Program art by Alvarez after 1977, presumably browned-off after five years of endless revisions, the artist may have hung up his/her shuttle painting boots.

Into The Eighties

Above: 1977/78. Rockwell International’s Star-raker, a heavy-lift ramjet/rocket HTHL SSTO capable of atmospheric cruise and powered landing. Below: 1980’s Rockwell proposals for AMSC. Middle Row: Lunar base with an oxygen production facility. Bottom Row: A nuclear vehicle arrives in Mars orbit and a surface base.

 

Above: Space station concept found in a 1985 book by Don Dwiggins. Below: “Rockwell Tradition in High Performance Vehicles” depicting Space Shuttle, B-1B, Apollo/Saturn, XB-70, X-15, X-10, and The National Aero-Space Plane. Published in 1988, it’s the latest work I can find from the artist’s time at North American Rockwell. If it is indeed his or her last, then I think it stands as an amazing piece to end a career with.

Image credit: North American Rockwell
Images: AFMC, Internet Archive, Mike Acs, National Archives, Numbers Station, SDASM Archives, NASM

6 thoughts on “Artist Profile: M. Alvarez”

  1. The artist’s Name in Manuel Edward Alvarez. He is 94 years old and lives in the Phoenix area. He does still have many of his illustrations in his possession, as I understand.

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    1. Oh wow!

      Leslie, I appreciate the comment.

      Natalie, hello! I’m delighted to hear that. Your Grandpa has been the source of a lot of detective work on my part.

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  3. Manny is my grandpa :) He’s 93 & an incredible artist. A Korean War Vet also. It’s so awesome to see these as some are ones we have not seen before! :) I was just talking to him about this earlier today and he was telling me the story about the painting he and my grandma presented to the president of Mexico. I was describing the painting and he told me what was included on it. So cool! :)

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  4. hello, my brother had 4 of this to me.I am Dave Alvarez second oldest of yes, the artist you have in question Manual.You’re an astronaut is emmanuel Ernesto Alvarez or Manual e Alvarez yes, this is a really cool article. I appreciate you doing this. My father never really got much recognition that he deserved being and working at Rockwell international, where he did all the illustrations that were used to sell the Congress, I worked with him at Rockwell on the shuttle program, I’m a plaster powder maker. But he was the graphics artist.Do painted the concepts before they ever happened?Which is pretty amazing.I’m in possession of a painting in concept painting before it was ever done before it was ever built of the shuttle drop test up to 747 back. It’s a painting of a 747, with the shuttle coming off the back of it, off the top amazing painting, but what makes it even more amazing is it signed by my father and also the test pilot, this was painted before it ever happened. Most of his paintings that you see were all concepts of dirt. Different satellite programs that just shuttled took up. My dad used to sit inside the shuttle. Cockpit down and down and down and he would paint and get his inspiration from things that like that. The work that he does is all is amazing. And I’m just still blows me away as he had to retire. Earlier, probably than wanted because he has glaucoma. He was painting and still painting to this day. Not as much as he’s 90 I believe 95 years old going to see him tonight to look after him and my mom in Arizona. I’m in California. My younger brother’s taking care of them looking after he was an amazing graphic charter. Barack Obama international. I have tons of stuff. That you did articles and magazines. And why not? You used to telling me when he painted he would sign his name down the bottom of the painting like most artists would do, but then when they took this painting and put it into a magazine are triggered to Congress or wouldn’t, they would always crop off his name? You said he got tired of that. So he started writing his name under the shuttle wing. I guess along the wing chip LOL you said if they’re gonna cut my name off. They’re gonna take off the shuttle wing too, and you would laugh. I really appreciate you doing this article. He’s done some amazing stuff. Since his retirement, he’s painted fighter plain pictures. Paintings for fighter pilots of flu in the Korean war. And what not if I can add an attachment. I’ll send you 2 of them to this. That I have in my phone. They’re just amazing where he gethis challenge is just mind-boggling. I check on a different art form. I guess in the sense of plaster pattern making I’ve been working in narrow space industry for 38 years. I’m retired now myself. But thank you so much for doing this article. It was great to see this. Get him some acknowledgment. I believe he has paintings hanging in the sponiansubstitute. And people have seen this stuff around the world in different museums and stuff. I’ve been personally to a couple of miles. Where I saw a group of people crowded around it big display as I was looking down from up top. I noticed you had a big space shuttle model in the center of the where the people were crowded around. We walked down there. And pushed my way through the crowd. I’m sure enough there was everyone of his painting. S are on display around the space shuttle mock up. Armada, I just remember walking up.So Hey, that’s my dad painted those and everybody looked at me like you’re right.I said no, really?That’s my dad parenthood.I’m very proud of him.If you ever wanted to interview him or something like thatin concept painting before it was ever done before it was ever built of the shuttle drop test up to 747 back. It’s a painting of a 747, with the shuttle coming off the back of it, off the top amazing painting, but what makes it even more amazing is it signed by my father and also the test pilot, this was painted before it ever happened. Most of his paintings that you see were all concepts of dirt. Different satellite programs that just shuttled took up. My dad used to sit inside the shuttle. Cockpit down and down and down and he would paint and get his inspiration from things that like that. The work that he does is all is amazing. And I’m just still blows me away as he had to retire. Earlier, probably than wanted because he has glaucoma. He was painting and still painting to this day. Not as much as he’s 90 I believe 95 years old going to see him tonight to look after him and my mom in Arizona. I’m in California. My younger brother’s taking care of them looking after he was an amazing graphic charter. Barack Obama international. I have tons of stuff. That you did articles and magazines. And why not? You used to telling me when he painted he would sign his name down the bottom of the painting like most artists would do, but then when they took this painting and put it into a magazine are triggered to Congress or wouldn’t, they would always crop off his name? You said he got tired of that. So he started writing his name under the shuttle wing. I guess along the wing chip LOL you said if they’re gonna cut my name off. They’re gonna take off the shuttle wing too, and you would laugh. I really appreciate you doing this article. He’s done some amazing stuff. Since his retirement, he’s painted fighter plain pictures. Paintings for fighter pilots of flu in the Korean war. And what not if I can add an attachment. I’ll send you 2 of them to this. That I have in my phone. They’re just amazing where he gethis challenge is just mind-boggling. I check on a different art form. I guess in the sense of plaster pattern making I’ve been working in narrow space industry for 38 years. I’m retired now myself. But thank you so much for doing this article. It was great to see this. Get him some acknowledgment. I believe he has paintings hanging in the sponiansubstitute. And people have seen this stuff around the world in different museums and stuff. I’ve been personally to a couple of miles. Where I saw a group of people crowded around it big display as I was looking down from up top. I noticed you had a big space shuttle model in the center of the where the people were crowded around. We walked down there. And pushed my way through the crowd. I’m sure enough there was everyone of his painting. S are on display around the space shuttle mock up. Armada, I just remember walking up. So Hey, that’s my dad painted those and everybody looked at me like you’re right. I said no, really? That’s my dad parenthood. I’m very proud of him. If you ever wanted to interview him or something like that, you should let.me know . He’s in Goodyear Arizona. He’s beat down death like 4 times now. He is definitely a trooper. My poor mom’s got dementia which is just sad. She was always the backbone of the family. He had 5 of us 4 boys, one girl, I see. Hear that Sharma’s grandkids, my daughter. In a couple of.My brother’s daughter’s have emailed you?It’s a big family.I can’t even tell you how many grand kids you have and how many great-great grandkids you have now, but I think it’s in the 100.You know l o l him and my mom planted a massive tree that was still growing to this day. Thank you for the article. Appreciate you, that’s soundly appreciate it. As we involve in passing this around, I just wanted to give you a kudos and a big thank you. It’s about time someone gave him some honor and respect for what he did. As he was with Rockwell, he had to rights to the work that he was doing were all property of the company. And rightfully so I guess. That’s a lot of the concepts you did or classified. Paintings projects are weapon systems. I remember going into this office one time when I was working at Rockwell and Downey. I’d go have lunch with him. I’m going to his office. You had to go to combination doors to get to him. Yet some pictures on the side of his illustration destination. Can I have one to this, dad? It was all my God that’s classified. You’re not allowed to see that cover it up right away. You let’s go to lunch but he has seen and heard a lot of stuff. I’m sure as she holds security clearances. He’s told us some stories, but he still holds to a security clearance guidelines even to this day You won’t tell us much.I worked on some projects too, so I got an idea LOL anyway.Thank you again if you do want to interview him, let me know.Maybe we can set that up.I’ll be out there for the next week.And a half , take care , thank you

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    1. Dave, thank you for the comment, it’s an article in its own right. It’s fantastic to hear all of this. I’ve always felt that your father was overlooked as an artist and is worthy of much more recognition than he received. Perhaps all of this goes a little way to righting that wrong, and surely there’s more that can be done. I’ll make sure to contact you privately. I have many, many questions.

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