Wednesday, July 14, 2010

NORMAN ROCKWELL

As a young boy I used to stay with my Beattie grandparents in Whakatane most school holidays. I would be put on the Road Services bus in Gisborne at 8.00am and would arrive at my destination about 4.00pm. Today you would whiz through there in less than three hours but back in the 50's it was a tortuous road through the Waioeke Gorge and for a young fellow the trip seemed to take forever.

One of the joys of staying with Nana and Poppa, and there were many, was the fact that they used to subscribe to the Saturday Evening Post and from a very young age I was fascinated, capitavated even by the Norman Rockwell covers on that magazine.

Alas the Saturday Evening Post has long gone but during this summer visit to New York, city and state, I was able to visit The Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge just across the state border in Massachusetts.
And what a joy it was to see the orginal art of many of those covers that I recall from my long distant childhood.
Rockwell left his art in trust to the museum and today it is the largest collection of his work on display.His studio is also part of the museum and not suprisingly more than 250,000 visitors a year are attracted to the site. I spent a very happy coule of hours here.

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