Gallery Series show features Atomic Age paintings

Work by Waterfield, a professor of art at the University of Nebraska—Kearney, has been shown at the United Nations Headquarters in Vienna, the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Los Alamos Historical Society Museum and the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

More information about Waterfield and his work can be found on his website, dougwaterfield.com.

In his artist’s statement, he said he hopes visitors to the show will find the 1950s in the U.S. as curious and fun as he does.

“As the bomb was tested in the Nevada desert, the Atomic Energy Commission constructed a number of what they called ‘Survival Towns’ nicknamed ‘Doomtowns’ by some of the workers. These were simulated American towns, complete with schools, homes and vehicles populated with clothed mannequins provided by J.C. Penney in return for advertising rights,” Waterfield said.

Bombs were exploded near the Doomtowns to see what the effects would be. The results were published in LIFE magazine and other places, adding fuel to the paranoid fire of a generation already besieged by Red Scare tactics and a Duck and Cover mentality.

Waterfield said images of the bomb were domesticated by the entertainment industry.

“Instead of being an instrument of unimaginable destruction, the bomb became the source of giant fire-breathing lizards, glowing killer mutants, creatures awakened from prehistoric sleep and a whole host of super-sized monsters,” Waterfield said. “Add to the mix the fact that Russia beat us to the punch by launching the Soviet Sputnik satellite and you can add outer space to the Atomic Age of design and movies in space-age midcentury American culture. Fallout shelters, car fins, gaudy Las Vegas signage, tiki bars, killer robots, mutant monsters—they are all children of the atom. That’s what this show is about, trying to make a new generation aware of a part of U.S. history that tends to not really make it into the history books.”

The show is free and open to the public 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays.