J Robert Oppenheimer in 1946. Department of Energy (DOE) at Oak Ridge. Public domain.
Oppenheimer Loved Art
Oppenheimer was a typical scientist, spending hours in a lab, focused on his discipline, hypothesizing, testing, collecting data, testing again, and bantering about findings with fellow scientists. But he was also typical in how he had interests outside his academic field. His mother, a painter, and father hung the works of some of history’s greatest artists around their apartment; young Oppenheimer would be greeted in his home by the exquisite images of van Gogh, Cezanne, and Gaugin. In 1954, he would deliver a lecture called “Prospects in the Arts and Sciences” at Columbia University. In his speech, he observed how the artist and the scientist are both essential, saying “They can make the paths that connect the villages of arts and sciences with each other and with the world at large the multiple, varied, precious bonds of a true and world-wide community.