March 6 through June 20, 2010

Norman and Molly Rockwell on swings, Arizona, 1969. Photo by W.L. Rusho. Norman Rockwell Museum Archives. Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.

“If you can’t be original, be as common as you can.”
—Norman Rockwell

Narrated by photographs, artwork, and personal effects, this engaging biographical study examines the life of artist Norman Rockwell, from New York City beginnings to his later Stockbridge years. Rarely viewed collections―from baby clothes to the artist’s vertical bifocals―offer unique insights into the life of one “common” man who produced indelible images of twentieth century America.

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January 16, 2009 through May 16, 2010

Step back in time to explore Rockwell’s imagery for The Saturday Evening Post, which prompted an outpouring of reader reaction during the artist’s forty-seven year tenure with the magazine. Shifting American values, reform and the New Deal, World War II and the rise of national identity, the Baby Boom and the rise of the middle class, and the politicization of the American populace are some of the themes that will be brought to life in this engaging and informative installation organized by Archivist Jessika Drmacich. Fan correspondence received by Rockwell himself, archival photographs, and the original Saturday Evening Post tearsheets that inspired such lively public response will be on view.

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November 7, 2009 through May 31, 2010

 Photography has been a benevolent tool for artists from Thomas Eakins and Edgar Degas to David Hockney. And to illustrators, always on the lookout for better ways to meet deadlines, the camera has long been a natural ally. But the thousands of photographs Norman Rockwell created as studies for his iconic images are a case apart. A natural storyteller, Rockwell envisioned his narrative scenarios down to the smallest detail. Yet at the easel he was an absolute literalist who rarely painted directly from his imagination.

Instead, he first brought his ideas to life in studio sessions, staging photographs that are fully realized works of art in their own right. Selecting props and locations, choosing and directing his models, he carefully orchestrated each element of his design for the camera before beginning to paint. Meticulously composed and richly detailed, Norman Rockwell’s study photographs mirror his masterworks in a tangible parallel universe. Photography opened a door to the keenly observed authenticity that defines Norman Rockwell’s art. And for us today it is a revelation to discover that so many of his most memorable characters were, in fact, real people.

Curator and author Ron Schick has undertaken a frame-by-frame study of the Norman Rockwell Museum’s newly digitized photography archive, made possible by a Save America’s Treasures project that has preserved a Rockwell archive of almost 20,000 negatives and made accessible the full range of the artist’s reference photography. Mr. Schick’s companion book Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is available through Little, Brown and Company.

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Art Critic (detail) The Saturday Evening Post, cover- April 16, 1955. Oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 36 1/4. Collection of The Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge ©1955 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN

The largest and most significant public collection of original works by celebrated twentieth century illustrator, Norman Rockwell, the Norman Rockwell Museum exhibits a comprehensive array of paintings, drawings, studies, photographs, and artifacts that reflect the evolution of the artist’s life and career. Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings (1943), iconic images inspired by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Address; Girl at Mirror (1954), a poignant coming of age narrative; and Triple Self-Portrait (1960), his witty personal reflection, are among the Museum’s extensive holdings. In addition, rarely seen works from public and private collections are always on view.

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Senator John H. Fitzpatrick and Jane Fitzpatrick with daughter Ann posing for Carolers Photo courtesy of Norman Rockwell Museum. ©1970 Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing Company, Niles, IL. Photo 1970

Stockbridge Town Hall

Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Currently on view

“Your models can make or break your work.”  -Norman Rockwell

In the fall of 1953, Norman Rockwell and his wife Mary moved from Arlington, Vermont to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the quintessential New England town which was home to the artist for his last twenty-five years. Rockwell, who then hired local people to model for the subjects of his illustrations, wasted no time employing residents of Stockbridge and the neighboring communities to pose for him. “After a while,” he said, “I knew everybody in town.”

Increasingly besieged by deadlines, Norman Rockwell began to use photographs as his primary references in the 1930s. He directed models on how to pose in his studio, and hired photographers to capture the likenesses that would ultimately inform his work. Together with his art, Rockwell’s reference photography inadvertently established an intimate and lasting record of the people of Stockbridge, who were an integral part of the artist’s most memorable images. Rockwell once noted, “I couldn’t ask for better models than my neighbors . . . I couldn’t do it without them.”

The preservation of this important legacy is made possible by The Stockbridge Models Project, a Norman Rockwell Museum initiative which has helped make the digitization and study of Rockwell’s Stockbridge photographic references possible. We are grateful for Town of Stockbridge support in this endeavor, which ensures the accessibility of these significant materials.

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