Norman Rockwell Museum – Stockbridge Massachusetts

...continuing with the 18^th day of our trip and exploration of the northeastern United States.

We started out the day with a major attraction!

This is the Norman Rockwell museum just outside of Stockbridge Massachusetts.  Not only is the museum attractive, but so are the grounds upon which it is situated.  Loved the flowers!

If you are over the age of 50, you absolutely should know who Norman Rockwell was.  I’m sure that our grandsons never heard of him…

Rockwell (1894 – 1978) was an American author, painter and illustrator.  His art work enjoyed broad appeal in the USA because they represented a reflection of American culture.  Norman Rockwell was best known for his cover illustrations for the magazine, The Saturday Evening Post that he completed over 5 decades.  They showed everyday life in the USA. 

What follows is a small selection of some of Rockwell’s works on display at the museum…

This original of a cover illustration for the August 30, 1947 edition of The Saturday Evening Post is entitled “Going and Coming”.  Like many of Rockwell’s works, this is a narrative painting in that it’s seasonal and topical…with a bit of humor thrown in.

This painting is titled “Marriage License” and it was used as the cover for The Saturday Evening Post’s June 11, 1955 issue.  The light on the bride’s dress indicates their bright future together.  Rockwell used models for his paintings.  In this case, the town clerk used as the model had just lost his wife…and the painting shows his state of mind.   

This is one of my favorites, a bad habit of the human species that has been greatly exacerbated by smart phones and social media.  Before technology overwhelmed us, gossip was mostly a local affair…not any longer!  In any case, this painting from 1948 is titled “The Gossips”.  It was the cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post’s issue on March 6, 1948. 

Reportedly, the Post’s editor questioned whether Rockwell’s characters could possibly be real.  The second grouping of Rockwell’s models for the painting was rather convincing… After the photos, Rockwell’s next rendering of these characters was in charcoal and graphite on paper.  It was also on display at the museum. 

This is one of Rockwell’s best known illustrations.  “The Runaway” is an illustration of what we would refer to these days as community policing.  This was the cover for the Post on September 20, 1958.  All the attention is focused on the boy and his situation… 

This painting is unlike any other works I’d seen by Rockwell.  Entitled “Strictly a Sharpshooter”, it was completed as an illustration for a short story by D.D. Beauchamp in the June 1941 issue of American Magazine.  In the painting, the gold digging girlfriend of the young boxer has goaded him into fighting a seasoned veteran of the sport.  When the inexperienced young man loses, she yells out her rejection of him!

Norman Rockwell was 84 when he died.  At the time, his vision was failing but he was still painting.  This was his last painting, unfinished when he died.  It’s called “John Sergeant and Chief Konkapot”.  The painting commemorated a significant event in Stockbridge’s history… This meeting resulted in a ‘grant’ of land to the Mohican Nation.

Another earlier Rockwell painting followed the same theme…races coming together.  This earlier painting is titled “New Kids in the Neighborhood” and it was an illustration for an article written by Jack Star for Look Magazine’s May 16, 1967 issue entitled “Negro in the Suburbs”.  The article was about the integration of Chicago’s Park Forest community.  It appears the children are getting acquainted and will probably be playing together very soon…  

This painting is titled “Veterans of Two Wars”.  It was the cover illustration for The Red Cross Magazine in June of 1918.  A World War I soldier who is about to ship out to the war in Europe stands between 2 veterans from the Civil War, one from the Confederate Army and the other from the Union Army… The apparent theme is unity and support for our veterans.

This would be a great place to mention 4 of Norman Rockwell’s most famous paintings.  In January of 1941, President Roosevelt had given a speech about his vision for a postwar world based on 4 basic human freedoms.  They were: freedom of speech; freedom of religion; freedom from want, and; freedom from fear. 

Rockwell had been producing illustrations that supported the war effort but he decided to do more, illustrating Roosevelt’s 4 freedoms.  The government rejected the effort at first but The Saturday Evening Post published Rockwell’s 4 paintings and they were immensely popular!  

In 1943, the Post and the US Department of the Treasury launched a joint campaign to sell war bonds and stamps.  The Four Freedoms and other related works went on tour.  Traveling to 16 cities, the exhibition was visited by over a million people who purchased $133,000,000 in war bonds and stamps…

To learn more about the speech, Rockwell’s contribution, and to view the paintings, go to https://www.nrm.org/2012/10/collections-four-freedoms/.  I would be surprised if you weren’t familiar with one or two of them…

This work is entitled “Home for Christmas” and it was published in McCall’s Magazine in December 1967.  Rockwell’s home and studio were just to the right of that white old Victorian Hotel.  He had another studio in town for a while as well.  It was over the market in the painting.  Note the light in the window.

This illustration was for an advertisement for ATO, Inc. the maker of American LaFrance Fire Engines.  It was completed in 1971. And it’s titled “The New American LaFrance is Here” (Firehouse).  All the people in the painting add interest to the theme.  The firehouse is in Stockbridge but the old LaFrance fire engine was substituted for the actual fire truck that was built by Ford.

This is another of Norman Rockwell’s better known paintings.  It’s simply titled “The Catch”.  It was the cover illustration for Country Gentleman Magazine’s issue on May 3, 1919.  Can you see what made the boy in the middle of the picture so unhappy?  This is the second photo of a pair of paintings.  In the first painting, the boys are headed off to the fishing hole.

This may be Rockwell’s most famous and, at the time, controversial painting.  This work is titled “The Problem We All Live With”.  This was Rockwell’s first assignment for Look Magazine.  A 6 year old African-American girl is being escorted by 4 U.S. Marshals to her first day at an all-white school in New Orleans.  The actual integration of New Orleans schools occurred 6 years after the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.

While working for The Saturday Evening Post, Rockwell had been forced to paint out an African-American in an illustration.  The Post’s rule was that African-American’s could only be shown in service industry jobs… Rockwell seemed to relish the newfound ability to correct the editorial prejudices in his previous work.

I’ll end our examples of Norman Rockwell’s paintings with “A Good Scout”.  This painting/illustration was done as an illustration for the Boy Scouts of America’s 1935 calendar and for the cover of the February 1935 issue of Boy’s Life Magazine.

Actually, Rockwell had a very long relationship with the Boy Scouts.  He illustrated the Boy Scout Handbook in 1912 and was on the staff of the scout’s Boy’s Life Magazine until 1917.  His loyalty to the Boy Scouts was unwavering.  He produced illustrations for the group’s annual calendar from 1925 – 1976.

The Rockwell Museum isn’t all about Norman Rockwell.  Other exhibits with a variety of artists regularly rotate through some of the galleries.  I’ve included 4 varied examples of other artist’s works that were on exhibit during our visit…

This painting is titled “Solitude”.  It was completed in 1911 by Maxwell Parish (American 1870 – 1966)

Lemuel Wilmarth (American 1835 – 1918) painted this sentimental work entitled “The Sailor’s Return” in 1884. 

Carle Van Loo (French 1705 – 1765) completed this work in 1737.  Its title is “A Pasha Having His Mistresses’ Portrait Painted”. 

American artist, N.C. Wyeth (1882 – 1945) painted the western themed “The Bear Hunter” in 1909.   

Our first thought was that this handsome big house on the grounds near the museum had been Norman Rockwell’s home and that there would be a tour.  We were mistaken.  This is the Linwood House.  It was built as a ‘summer cottage’ by a prominent (and apparently successful) New York attorney.  This was among the first of the elegant ‘Berkshire Cottages’ built in the area. It is not open to the public and it serves as the administrative offices for the Rockwell Museum…

Norman Rockwell lived and worked in Stockbridge Massachusetts for the last 25 years of his life.  He called this studio, his “best studio yet.”  This building was originally located in the backyard of his home on South Street in town.  Toward the end of his life, in 1976, Rockwell left the studio and its contents to the Norman Rockwell Museum.  In 1986, the building was cut in half and moved to the museum’s grounds. 

All of the artist supplies, furniture and decorative items in the studio are original as given to the museum directly by Norman Rockwell. 

We really enjoyed our visit to the Norman Rockwell Museum!  It’s very well done, the docents are very knowledgeable and Rockwell’s art is ‘comfort food’ for the mind.  It was late August when we visited the museum.  We both agree that this was the busiest tourist attraction that we visited anywhere during our trip!

To learn more about Norman Rockwell and his prolific artistic endeavors, you can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Rockwell. 

The Norman Rockwell Museum is located at 9 Glendale Road (MA Hwy. 183) in Stockbridge Massachusetts.  They are open 7 days a week.  Admission is $20 for adults, $18 for seniors and $17 for veterans.  Phone: 413-298-4700.  Website: https://www.nrm.org/.

That’s about it for this post… Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by for a tour!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave