What: Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera
When: November 19, 2010- April 10, 2011
This exhibition is ongoing. (Finally I am catching up my blog to present!) The pictures below are from the museum HP.
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/norman_rockwell/barbershop.php
Rockwell has been my favorite. But even for those who is not a big fan, this exhibition can be very interesting, because it reveals a "backstage" of how something becomes an artwork.
Rockwell used photos to create his painting. He picked locations, used models dressed something almost exactly what he wanted to draw in the picture, and took pictures with different poses. Then he put them together--using parts here, parts there---to create a painting.
The exhibition put photos and final paintings next to each other. The most interesting part for me was that I could clearly see the process of how Rockwell put a soul into what was originally a plain photograph (which was taken not to be an art itself).
Most of his paintings were for magazine and posters, they had certain stories to tell. Rockwell chose details very carefully, so that viewers could instantly grab insights. He did it so well, we do not know what he did to make them work so good. Observing the "original" photographs made it easier to see what he did to give life to the paintings.
The "original" photos look almost exactly what appears in his picture, but something crucial was added in the process of drawing--which was the essence of making his picture so warm and human. They were specific angles, expressions and details, but also something coming through Rockwell himself, his values and beliefs, his personality, his own version of the world.
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/norman_rockwell/neighborhood.php
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