Comments on: Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera http://www.nrm.org/2009/11/norman-rockwell-behind-the-camera-3/ The Home for American Illustration. Sat, 10 Sep 2011 01:34:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: admin http://www.nrm.org/2009/11/norman-rockwell-behind-the-camera-3/comment-page-1/#comment-49 admin Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:31:15 +0000 http://www.nrm.org/?p=2619#comment-49 This exhibition is terrific. I was particularly struck by the versimillitude of the way that Rockwell worked - tracing directly from his photographs (a practice he was very conflicted about, but felt was necessary considering his overwhelming deadlines). In the "Doctor's Office" painting, there are numerous small details in the room that I always interpreted as being "put" there by Rockwell in an attempt to make the scene more sentimental or patriotic. Imagine my suprise on seeing that the details were already there in the photos, items that were "in situ" at the doctor's office to start with! Marvelous. On a related note, a photographer associate of mine is wondering about the role of image ownership/licensing and copyright that the images in the collection represent. I suppose that most of the photographers who worked with Rockwell (there were 3 main ones and a few short-term shooters) were functionally employees of his, so the rights would have resided with the "business" entity that was Norman Rockwell. But it would be interesting to see some discussion on this question. This exhibition is terrific. I was particularly struck by the versimillitude of the way that Rockwell worked – tracing directly from his photographs (a practice he was very conflicted about, but felt was necessary considering his overwhelming deadlines). In the “Doctor’s Office” painting, there are numerous small details in the room that I always interpreted as being “put” there by Rockwell in an attempt to make the scene more sentimental or patriotic. Imagine my suprise on seeing that the details were already there in the photos, items that were “in situ” at the doctor’s office to start with! Marvelous.

On a related note, a photographer associate of mine is wondering about the role of image ownership/licensing and copyright that the images in the collection represent. I suppose that most of the photographers who worked with Rockwell (there were 3 main ones and a few short-term shooters) were functionally employees of his, so the rights would have resided with the “business” entity that was Norman Rockwell. But it would be interesting to see some discussion on this question.

]]>