SPECIAL TO THE PVTReckow?s creations include this ghostly airborne horse. Advertisement

Milo Reckow has a more diverse portfolio of artistic renderings than most.

He has drawn, sketched and painted everything from alien cowboys and dinosaurs to portraits of stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

But despite many years of making a living through art, if you ask him he'll tell you his real art career didn't begin until after he retired during the late 1980s when he could focus on his vivid oil paintings of everything from white tigers to nebulas.

"I rented a penthouse and sort of locked myself up and painted," Reckow said. "It keeps my retirement interesting. You don't get a lot of oils in commercial art."

Reckow began painting several hours a day, and his latest works, vivid oils featuring horses in the midst of brightly exploding nebulas, will be on display at the Pahrump Community Library Aug. 22 through Oct. 3. A reception is set for 1-3 p.m., Aug. 29.

Ironically, Reckow grew up in an artistic family only to find that his own inherited artistic streak was totally different from that of his parents.

"My father was a symphony conductor and my mother was a pianist," Reckow explained. "And I had no musical talent whatsoever."

Growing up during the Great Depression, Reckow took classes during which he learned to sketch and found he enjoyed drawing.

The burgeoning interest in art took a backseat to World War II, during which Reckow served with the Marines.

"The Japanese had just finished bombing Pearl Harbor," Reckow said. "The recruiters came to the high school and said be drafted later or go now and pick where you go."

After serving, Reckow took a career assessment test that was given to returning veterans to help them determine what vocations best suited their talents.

"They told me I could be a watchmaker, an architect or a commercial artist," Reckow said. "But being an architect had too much math, so I decided to become a commercial artist."

Reckow spent the next portion of his life studying at the Los Angeles Art Institute and University of Southern California on the GI Bill.

Soon Reckow was working as a commercial artist for various Hollywood advertising agencies including RKO Studios, then owned by Howard Hughes.

In 1958, Reckow made his way to Las Vegas, back then little more than a few glinting lights in the desert.

He created local ads for the then-new Stardust and Desert Inn hotels.

In 1960, Reckow found himself farther up north in Reno where he began a successful four-year stint creating paint-by-number murals.

"That was a big fad back then," Renckow said. "When the fad faded I went back to Las Vegas."

So in 1964 Reckow began what would become a 23-year career with EG&G, the prime contractor for the Nevada Test Site.

Reckow couldn't specify what, exactly, he drew or did as the test site's art director -- "It's classified," he explained -- but he did say he oversaw a small staff and did artist's conceptions.

After retiring, Reckow began what he called his "science time of artwork."

Back then, his vivid renditions of dinosaurs and space nebulas provided an essential resource for those who studied in those fields.

"This is before Spielberg did his movie," Reckow explained. "The only way people knew what a dinosaur looked like was if people like me painted them."

Reckow's interest in painting dinosaurs began before he retired.

"I would go to the museums in L.A. and San Diego and take pictures of the bones and flesh them out," he said.

Although it's easy enough today to find accurate renderings of dinosaurs, people still enjoy Reckow's work.

His dinosaur collection toured Las Vegas and Henderson libraries for nine months.

Continuing his interest in science, Reckow also spent time at the library scouring astronomy books to accurately portray nebulas.

"A lot of people were interested in nebulas," he continued. "This is before the Hubble telescope and the only way to really get the color was to paint them."

Several of his renderings of space are hanging in the Smithsonian Institute.

"It fascinated me, because I love space," he explained. "There weren't all these computer renderings they have now."

Reckow enjoyed some success combing his passion for art and science -- his painting of the surface of Pluto was used by the National Space Society and Grollier Encyclopedia -- but as he put it, "The Hubble put me out of the nebula business."

Now he's found a way to put a new twist on the nebulas by having horses floating in their midst.

Today, Reckow relies on Google and the library and depicts actual nebulas.

He said his inspiration "depends on what I can get ... I like a lot of color, especially the reds, and I try to find what horse would go with them," he explained.

Reckow's paintings will soon be available online.