WANT TO GO?
WHAT: “Norman Rockwell: The Man Behind the Canvas”
WHEN: Through Dec. 31. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; 12:30-4:30 p.m. on Sundays. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
WHERE: Springfield Museum of Art, 107 Cliff Park Drive, Springfield
ADMISSION: $5 for adults; free for those ages 17 and under. $3 for students and seniors. Those who are members of other art museums including the Dayton Art Institute are admitted free of charge.
For more information: (937) 325-4673 | www.springfieldart.net
If you don't get to Springfield often, here's your rare chance to learn more about one of American's most popular artists.
You've probably seen “The Saturday Evening Post” magazine and its charming covers depicting everyday life in small-town America. Thanks to artist Norman Rockwell, we peeked at a teenage girl and boy getting ready for their prom, a little boy reading his sister’s diary, a schoolmarm and her students, a soldier home on leave, a little boy tending to his sick puppy, a barbershop quartet.
The Springfield Museum of Art is hosting “Norman Rockwell: The Man Behind the Canvas.” The exhibit's curator Karen Anne Briggs, executive director of the LaGrange Art Museum, says this show is not meant to be a survey course in Rockwell illustration but rather provide “a rare and unusual opportunity to get a glimpse of the man who privately, humanly, with dry Yankee wit and much wisdom, showed us a better version of ourselves.”
What you'll see at the exhibit
The roots of the Springfield show can be traced back to a plane ride when Briggs struck up a conversation with two strangers — Charlie and Joy Flint — on a flight to San Francisco. Turned out the couple owned the largest privately held collection of Norman Rockwell ephemera in the country and offered to share their precious collection with Briggs and her museum.
Among their treasures are dozens of photographs taken by Louis Lamone, Rockwell’s trusted friend and photographer. Initially Lamone was charged with documenting Rockwell’s photos before they were delivered to clients. Later he was also responsible for the “reference” photos of staged scenes that Rockwell used in his work. Lamone also assisted in photo shoots and was even one of Rockwell’s models.
“Karen recognized the value of the photographs in their ability to show another side of Rockwell,” says Ann Fortescue, executive director of the Springfield museum who says the photos show both Rockwell’s stern public side and his goofy and playful private side. They also demonstrate Rockwell’s love of costumes and props.
“Karen worked with the collector and selected 100 photos for this exhibit,” she says. “Through his work as the principal artist for the ‘Post,’ Rockwell had the opportunity to meet many well-known and famous people.”
In addition to the photographs, you’ll see other interesting memorabilia ranging from personal letters to behind-the-scenes descriptions of many of Rockwell’s most famous illustrations and how they came to be. You’ll see postage stamps he designed, learn more about his involvement and work for the Boy Scouts and his involvement with the Hollywood film, “Stagecoach.” The exhibit even includes some favorite recipes.
Straight from the Smithsonian
In conjunction with the exhibit, Smithsonian American Art Museum Chief Curator Virginia Mecklenburg will come to town on Tuesday, Oct. 25 to share her research on Rockwell and the popular culture that informed the 2010 Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibit, “Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
Mecklenburg says she’s always delighted to return to Dayton because she lived her as a child when her father was stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Norman Rockwell, she says, not only lives in the hearts of Americans of all generations — whether or not they ever saw or even heard of “The Saturday Evening Post” — but also in the hearts of people all over the world.
“The things and people he shows us — their facial expressions, their body language and the way they interact with one another — really captures the heart of who we are as human beings,” Mecklenburg says. ” It is absolutely universal and you don’t even have to speak English or spend any time in the United States to understand what he’s showing us.”
What's special about the Springfield exhibit?
What’s special about the Springfield exhibit is that it brings all of the stories home and makes them personal because we get to see how Rockwell posed ordinary people that he knew — his neighbors, children, wife. They all became the characters in his stories. Through Louis Lamone’s photographs we see how careful Rockwell was to make certain that the postures and expressions conveyed precisely what he wanted to say.
Briggs says the fact that Rockwell has managed to capture the hearts of so many people is easy to understand when you know him. “For somehow, he himself is like a gallery of Rockwell paintings —friendly, human, deeply American, varied in mood, but full, always, of the zest for living.”
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