A few days ago, AJ and I had the exciting opportunity to finally check out the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. AJ and I were pretty geeked to see Rockwell’s work up close after growing up with his illustrations of old Saturday Evening Post magazine that we had as kids. As a young girl, I remember admiring his famous The Golden Rule piece that hung in the living room of a family friend and wondering how in the world he manage to capture the details and the essence of each individual in that spectrum of races and ethnicities.
Norman Rockwell: Behind The Camera explores Rockwell’s relationship with the camera as a basis for his numerous illustrations. I was very suprised (and pleased) to learn that he often worked off of staged photography scenes that allowed to construct the mood that he wanted to capture in his paintings. I was happy to learn that he worked from photographs because I often do the same in my paintings. During his process, Rockwell would shoot each scene at different angles and then use a composite of his shots to create the final piece. Initially he used professional models but later on he preferred using every day folk that he encountered in his daily interactions because they conveyed more of authentic feel of everyday people.
Rockwell’s works are especially astonishing in their attention to detail; it was obvious that the man was a perfectionist. In several of his paintings, he recreated minute details in the backgrounds of his works , such as the lettering and graphics on a comic book, or the repeated patterns of a wood grain. In fact, Rockwell was known for doing hundreds of sketches before diving into his works and even when he neared their completion, he sometimes would be so dissatisfied that he would start the same piece over again from scratch.
The Problem We All Live With by Norman Rockwell, 1964
I was especially thrilled to see was Rockwell’s depiction of events pertaining to the Civil Rights Movement, such as the piece The Problem We All Live With, which commemorates when Ruby Bridges became one of the first black students to attend public school New Orleans in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The jolting work Southern Justice: Murder in Mississippi represents the murder of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney.
If you can, I highly recommend that you pay a visit to the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition on Rockwell’s work. Not only is it a visual porthole into American history, but it’s also a fitting homage to an artist that was a master of his craft.
Info:
Norman Rockwell: Behind The Camera
Dates: Now through April 10, 2011
