Ionel Talpazan, who saw a UFO as a child above his village in Romania, painted spacecraft until he died two weeks ago at 60 years old. As a young man, after escaping Romania by swimming across the Danube, he made his way to New York City in the 1980s where he sometimes lived in a cardboard box on the street. Talpazan sold his UFO paintings and sculptures on the sidewalk until an art dealer helped bring his work into galleries and museums.
"My art shows spiritual technology, something beautiful and beyond human imagination, that comes from another galaxy," Talpazan once said. "So, in relative way, this is like the God."
More at NPR and the New York Times.
