Tag Archives: Norman Rockwell museum

The Norman Rockwell Museum

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The Norman Rockwell Museum tells the story of Rockwell’s life and work through his paintings. There are three large floor to ceiling walls of framed magazine covers. So many that it’s almost overwhelming.

A film tells his life story.

There’s also a full gallery of his paintings including some that seemed kind of obscure to me and others that are almost infamous.

One of the reasons I like Rockwell’s work is that he had a way of telling stories of everyday life with only imagery. You can tell what they’re thinking and feeling and you don’t need a card next to it on the wall to know exactly what’s happening. It’s a study on the beauty of life.

This is one of my favorites. From November 1945, it’s titled “Thanksgiving: Mother and Son Peeling Potatoes.” He gives us a seemingly simple scene. They’re in the kitchen, chatting while he helps her prepare the meal.

He’s a soldier, freshly home and still in his uniform but he’s wearing civilian shoes. He seems content to be back in the warmth of his mother’s kitchen but the chair he’s perched on looks too small.

He has outgrown it somehow but he sits with feet up like a little boy would.

Look closer.

He has creases in his forehead and lines on his hands. The time away has aged him. The young man has returned home a soldier. Look at how natural and realistic his hands are. It’s almost like a photo.

Now consider his mother. This is the face of a woman who has spent many a sleepless night praying for her son. In this moment, she can scarcely believe he’s here. Look at the way she gazes at him as though she wonders if this is a dream.

Their surroundings tell a story of harvest and abundance with a pan of cranberries and a pumpkin on the floor. Is that a bushel basket of apples? A mixing bowl, preserves, a couple of oranges and that bright pop of red in the tablecloth tell a story of country folk who will use what they have to make this the best Thanksgiving they’ve ever known.

But her soldier is home so it will be the very best even if the potatoes turn out lumpy.

This is true Americana and it really is one of my favorite paintings of his. But there are so many more.

Like this one of a lineman in 1947.

And a coal miner in 1944.

They both look like they could step off the canvas and set down the road toward home.

Of course, everyone clamors to see this fifties era view of Stockbridge, his adopted hometown. It’s one of his most requested and recognizable works.

He used models. Often the models were folks right there in the county. Some he used more than once.

His paintings tend to tell the stories of the small towns and the dying ways of the people who made this country great with their heads bowed in prayer, their hands grimy from hard work, and their eyes raised up in hope for the future.

He made a series called “The Four Freedoms” based on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s declaration that the U.S. would fight for:

Freedom of Speech.

Freedom of Worship.

Freedom of Fear.

And Freedom of Want.

So, friends, this was the inspiration for our trip to Stockbridge, Massachusetts and I am so glad we went.

There are many more paintings I could share with you today but I’m thinking we may hold onto a few to revisit some winter day when we are all itching to hit the road.

Want to visit this museum? Click here for their website.

Norman Rockwell’s Stockbridge Studio

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Several months ago I read a story about the town where Norman Rockwell said he found some of his best inspiration. The story promoted a quaint New England town and a Norman Rockwell Museum where visitors could get to know more about the man and his work.

While Norman Rockwell has become something of a cliche to many, I tend to think his storytelling is genius and that our society could benefit from a good dose of small town innocence.

So, off we went to Stockbridge, Massachusetts in the Berkshires. This town of 2,000 residents is a year round attraction known for access to outdoor activities, small town charm, and a handful of famous folks who once made their home here.

Rockwell’s first Stockbridge studio was in the upstairs of a building that now is home to a cafe (also the same building that was home to the famed Alice’s Restaurant). He moved to the area and set up shop here when his wife came to Stockbridge for medical care.

It has north facing windows on the second floor that overlook the Main Street and would be quite the window out on the world. What I wouldn’t give for a morning of writing and people watching from that space! While he rented this studio space, he set out to have renovated an 1830s carriage house in the yard of his home in town.

This would be his creative space beginning in 1957 until his death 21 years later. He adopted Stockbridge as his hometown and said some of his best work originated here. Most of his important social commentary work was done here in this studio.

The studio is no longer located in Stockbridge. That’s because it was loaded onto a flatbed truck and moved to the campus of the Norman Rockwell Museum in 1986.

We toured the studio before we went through the museum and had a wonderful tour guide.

He shared with us that the museum looks much the same as it did when Rockwell worked here, aside from the fact it is now perched on a rural hillside instead of in town. His easel is set up as though waiting for the master to return from lunch. His paints and brushes are on the table.

His radio and phone too.

Rockwell was a fastidious housekeeper who our tour guide said cleaned his studio several times a day. This seemed odd to me given how messy most artists are but fitting giving how squeaky clean his storytelling was. The space is light and pleasant and I can see why he said it was his best studio of all the twenty or so he worked in.

I lingered at the end of the tour and remained for a moment after everyone else had filed out. It was easy to imagine that Rockwell had just stepped out and that I might be able to perch on the couch while he began his next painting.

The property has walking trails which we didn’t take advantage of and a world class museum that we enjoyed thoroughly. I’ll take you to the museum next time.

Norman Rockwell’s Thanksgiving

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It’s Thanksgiving in America. This is meant to be a day of thanks for the blessings we’ve enjoyed for the last year but it’s more a day of food and football. Tomorrow, as folks will spend the day buying a bunch of stuff they probably don’t need and can’t afford.

A Norman Rockwell painting we are not.

This painting is called “Home For Thanksgiving.” It was featured on the November 24, 1945 cover of The Saturday Evening Post. That was 77 years ago today.

The young man and his mother were real people. He was freshly home from the war and helping his mother with chores he likely would have hated doing in the Army Air Corps. Kitchen Patrol or KP duty probably didn’t seem so bad in the warmth of his mama’s kitchen.

Rockwell paid them each $15 to sit for the portrait. I read once that they owned the local dairy in their Vermont small town and that the young man was Rockwell’s milkman.

This painting was donated to the Eugene M. Connor Post 193 of the American Legion in Massachusetts many years ago. But they didn’t know it was an original and left it hanging in a hallway for decades. When someone offered $500 for what the Legion thought was a print, they took it to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts for appraisal.

After learning they owned an American treasure, they loaned it to the museum for display and safekeeping.

Just last year, the Legion sold it at auction for $4.3 million. This hefty sum went into a trust and interest earned will help pay bills and fund future repairs for the Legion.

It’s a beautiful slice of Americana and I like how it illustrates a nation transitioning from wartime into peacetime. Something so everyday like peeling potatoes probably felt almost luxurious to the soldier and his mother who had suffered untold sleepless nights in his absence.

Her relief is palpable.

Gratitude would have been the only thing that mattered in many households across the nation that Thanksgiving. Our soldiers were headed home. Life was returning to a new normal. Life was good.

Wherever you are in this world today, I hope life is good. Happy Thanksgiving!