Norman Rockwell: Behind The Camera

For the majority of his decades-long career, Norman Rockwell relied on a camera to help him render the iconic scenarios born in his imagination. Photograph by photograph, he painstakingly assembled the specific features he sought for his envisioned illustration, projecting whole or partial pictures of amateur models, objects and settings onto drafting paper, and from there, onto canvas.

Many of Rockwell's most famous works - including those reproduced for LIFE and the Saturday Evening Post - began behind the lens. Uncanny in their approximation to his final paintings and unknown outside a small circle of Rockwell specialists, his study photographs are among the most evocative ever taken by a painter and undoubtedly cast his brushwork in a new light.

“What a wonderful book this is--and what a rare behind-the-scenes look at the artistic process it provides. So many of the moments we see as impossibly idealized versions of us are in fact us. Rockwell's genius improves with this 'backstage' glance.”

Alan Cheuse, NPR
Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera reveals the primary texts next to the colorful classics they became, and the result is truly impossible to put down. Elizabeth Bougerol, NBC NewYork.com
Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, written and compiled by Ron Schick, has given me immense newfound respect for the man, for the meticulous photography, the real people and the unintentionally hilarious DIY props and sets that he required to make his painted fantasies of Americana come true Wilson Rothman, Gizmodo.com
A wonderful new book by Ron Schick . . . that lifts the curtain on Rockwell's working methods, revealing how profoundly labor-intensive and thoughtfully imagined they were.--David Kamp, Vanity Fair
--Ken Burns, Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker

Ron Schick is a writer and editor specializing in the history of photography. He is the author, with Julia Van Haaften, of The View from Space: American Astronaut Photography. Schick lives in New York City.

For the majority of his decades-long career, Norman Rockwell relied on a camera to help him render the iconic scenarios born in his imagination. Photograph by photograph, he painstakingly assembled the specific features he sought for his envisioned illustration, projecting whole or partial pictures of amateur models, objects and settings onto drafting paper, and from there, onto canvas.Many of Rockwell's most famous works - including those reproduced for LIFE and the Saturday Evening Post - began behind the lens. Uncanny in their approximation to his final paintings and unknown outside a small circle of Rockwell specialists, his study photographs are among the most evocative ever taken by a painter and undoubtedly cast his brushwork in a new light.

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