The Illustrations of Roberto Osti [Slide Show]

Roberto Osti's beautifully detailed and wonderfully composed paintings have delighted Scientific American readers for many years

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The European Association of Medical and Scientific Illustrators (AEIMS) has honored Scientific American illustrator Roberto Osti with the selection of three of his paintings for inclusion in the 2008 Scientific Illustrators Exhibition in Bologna, Italy. The exhibition, which is showing at the Palazzo Poggi in the center of the old town of Bologna, began March 31, 2008 and will run through the end of May 2008.

View the slideshow.

Four of Osti's works will also be shown at a new exhibit at the Medialia Gallery, 335 West 38th Street in New York City. The exhibit, titled Expressing Anatomy, opens with a reception on June 14, and the exhibit closes on July 19.

Osti, who now teaches scientific illustration at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and at the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies at Drew University in Madison, N.J., began illustrating for Scientific American in 1993. His highly detailed and wonderfully composed paintings delighted both readers and authors, many of whom wondered over the years if the originals were for sale. His work has been exhibited in Bologna, Milan, New York City and Philadelphia.


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Well-known science and children's book illustrator Patricia Wynne has said of Osti's work that his "art is a sublimely clear and gloriously fresh view of the natural world." Ann Caudle, head of the Science Illustration Program at the University of California, Extension, Santa Cruz, adds that "Mr. Osti's work is exceptional–—vivid, elegant, and like all of the very best of such illustration, it delivers science content with complete clarity." We completely agree!

For a look at the exhibition pieces and other works of Roberto Osti click here.

View the slideshow.

Edward Bell is a contributing art director at Scientific American and an animator specializing in planetary science. He is author of the award-winning iPad book Journey to the Exoplanets.

More by Edward Bell

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