In his article entitled 'Electric Light as a Medium in the Visual Fine Arts: A Memoir' ( Leonardo 8, 109 (1975)) he described the early use of electric lights in his art in 1954, and the introduction of motion in his kinetic paintings in 1955.

Today, he is recognized internationally as one of the great pioneers of light and motion in art. Malina turned his full energy to the visual arts (although he had never ceased drawing and sketching as a pastime since his early childhood and youth).

Hickman award of the American Rocket Society in 1948, and the Order of Merit from the French Society for the Encouragement of Research and Invention in 1962. He was awarded the French Prix d'Astronautique REP Hirsch in 1939, the C. He drew up a plan for a 'Lunar International Laboratory' where astronauts, scientists and technologists from different countries could work together for peaceful purposes in space. He was elected vice-president of the Academy of Astronautics in 1960 and president in 1963. Until his death he was an active member of the International Astronautics Federation as well as the International Academy of Astronautics, both of which he helped to found. From 1947 to 1953 he worked at UNESCO, Paris, as counsellor and head of the Division of Scientific Research. He conceived and directed the design, construction and testing of the United States' first successful high altitude sounding rocket, the WAC Corporal (White Sands, New Mexico, 1944-1945). In 1994, he was a co-founder, with the noted aeronautical engineer, Theodore von Kármán, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California), and was its first director from 1944 to 1946. in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) in 1940 with a thesis on rocket propulsion and rocket flight. He became interested in rocket engineering in the 1930s, when rocketry and space travel were scoffed at as 'science-fiction dreams'. Malina obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University in 1934. He was internationally famous for his work on early rocket development, his pioneering contribution to Kinetic Art, his creation and development of the journal Leonardo, and his lifelong efforts to promote international cooperation in science and technology and the visual arts.īorn in 1912 in Brenham, Texas (U.S.A.), Frank J. Malina was a rare combination of scientist-artist-editor-humanist. Malina, the Founder-Editor of Leonardo, died of a heart attack on 9 November 1981 at his home in Boulogne sur Seine, a suburb of Paris, France. The Editors of Leonardo are deeply grieved to announce that Dr.