Craig Kodera
Aviation is this artist’s living. Painting is a joy and a choice; not his career. Craig Kodera career is as an airline pilot, so each of his paintings reflect an intimate knowledge of how it feels to fly and what it looks like out the cockpit. "I paint what I see," he says,"and my office window is at 35,000 feet." An appreciation of aviation came easy, since Kodera was raised in what he terms an "aviation family," which included an uncle who flew with the famous Doolittle Raiders during World War II. At an age when most teens were trying to ace the driver’s test, Kodera had earned his private pilot’s license. A love of painting also came early. Kodera started seriously studying it at fourteen. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in mass communications and spent a year as a commercial artist before joining the Air Force Reserve, where he was assigned to the Air Rescue Service and then the Strategic Air Command. There his knowledge of air war history grew while he logged literally thousands of hours flying. Eventually Kodera left the service and joined American Airlines. When he isn’t flying, he’s usually painting. His artwork is part of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum permanent collection and hangs in many museums. He is also the charter vice president of the American Society of Aviation Artists, a member of the Air Force Art Program and serves with the Los Angeles Society of Illustrators.
"Fifty Years a Lady" Craig Kodera Limited Edition Fine Art Giclee Canvas
The DC-3: no other airplane has revolutionized air transportation, flown as many hours, served with as many airlines or flown in continuous service as long. Stemming from the earlier Douglas designs of the DC-1 and DC-2, the DC-3 production lines ran a scant ten years but produced 455 airliner versions and well over 10,000 military versions.
“In my painting,” said Craig Kodera, “I strove to evoke a sense of warmth, nostalgia and romance. Never have so many stories been written about a single airplane; never has on airplane been so much a part of our consciousness. It seems that everyone, at one time, has flown in a DC-3. This painting is for all of them. As unique as the airplane is, so too is the painting. My goal was to capture not just the airframe but indeed the spirit of aviation which is the Douglas DC-3.”

30" by 20" Image Size, Edition size 50, signed by the artist

All Limited Edition prints are signed and numbered (S/N) by the artist. Limited Edition prints are restricted to a certain number. For example, if 400 prints are made from an original painting, once they’re gone, that’s it. There is no limit to the number of open edition prints of a particular painting. That’s why Limited Edition prints are more expensive — and more valuable to collectors — than "open" edition. Rare objects are more valuable. The term "giclee" denotes an elevation in printmaking technology. Images are generated from high resolution digital scans and printed with archival quality inks onto various substrates including canvas, fine art, and photo-base paper. The giclee printing process provides better color accuracy than other means of reproduction. The quality of the giclee print rivals traditional silver-halide and gelatin printing processes and is commonly found in museums, art galleries, and photographic galleries.  
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