Scouting, Volume 48, Number 2, February 1960 Page: 38
80 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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AIVIBASSADO R
By WALTER MacREEK SCOUTING magazine field reporter
w
ho in 1912 could have pre-
dicted the far-reaching influence this
lanky seventeen-year-old boy would
have? Who could foresee the signifi-
cant contribution he would make
as an interpreter of boys, through
helping people enjoy the many-sided
nature of a boy?
His name was Norman Rockwell.
He started illustrating articles for
Boys' Life in 1912 and painted some
of the magazine's early covers.
In 1925, the first Brown & Bigelow
Boy Scout calendar was issued —
soon to become the world's largest
selling calendar. From year to year
the millions of admirers of these
calendars have been greeted by
paintings of boys portraying a com-
bination of idealism and human
interest. All but two of them have
been painted by Rockwell. His paint-
ings have also been used as covers
for three editions of the Boy Scout
Handbook.
In these and other ways Rockwell
has been one of Scouting's staunch
friends and contributors.
"I take off my hat to Scout-
masters," Rockwell told me in his
Stockbridge, Massachusetts, studio.
"They're the real heroes of Scout-
ing." He shares something of the
way he feels about Scoutmasters in
his painting of the Scoutmaster in
camp on the 1956 calendar and now
used on the cover of the Scout-
master's Handbook.
"I've seen Scoutmasters in jam-
borees, have eaten with their patrols,
and have admired their skill as I
have watched them work with boys.
Those Scoutmasters truly have some-
thing. Talk about good Americans
doing things for their community —
they're doing it."
Has deep perception
Like his paintings there is the
ring of earnestness in his tribute.
You realize that he's not just talk-
ing. He has the "feel" of the far-
reaching influences that can come to
men and boys together in Scouting
situations. He captures it on canvas.
Norman Rockwell doesn't paint
what he doesn't feel. When he puts
a situation on canvas he shares deep
firsthand perceptions so you, too,
can't help but see them.
Take his illustrations of Mark
Twain's books, that had been pre-
viously illustrated by dozens of
other artists. Everybody knows
about Tom Sawyer and Mark Twain.
It should be easy to dream up the
setting for such stories in the studio.
But Norman Rockwell doesn't
work that way. He journeyed to
Hannibal, Missouri. He climbed on
to the roof and crawled down the
eave spout of the house where
Mark Twain had lived. He even
went to the cave, and with flashlight
turned out, spent hours there one
night to get the atmosphere of the
place. Is it any wonder that viewers
get the feel of the place when they
turn to the illustrations in the book?
Understands people
Rockwell knows people. He under-
stands how deep their emotions are.
He knows of their hopes and dreams
and joys and disappointments. Early
in life Rockwell became curious
about the motive power in the lives
of everyday people.
As a boy he benefited from a
rich heritage that comes through a
knowledge of books and the people
in them. His father took time to
read to him and tell him the stories
of Stevenson, Dickens, and Kipling.
Years ago, Rockwell hit upon
the idea of having his models read
aloud to him—stories from Balzac,
Scott, and many others. This relaxed
the model and aided the artist's
hungry quest to know more about
people. "Mrs. Rockwell often read
to me while I painted," he told me.
I'm sure that Norman Rockwell
was a regular boy himself. He might
have grown up in a log cabin or
in the granite hills of his beloved
New England — but he didn't. He
was born in New York City and
as a youngster of nine moved to
Mamaroneck, New York, where he
grew up. He sang in the famous
boys' choir of the Cathedral of St.
John the Divine in New York City,
and began to draw pictures at an
early age.
Appreciation off men
"He did a lot for me," Norman
Rockwell said over and over as he
mentioned first one man and then
another in talking of his boyhood
drys. His father; the principal of
Mamaroneck High School, who per-
mitted him to take each Wednesday
off to attend art classes at the Art
Students' League in New York City;
Edward Cave of Boys' Life; Chief
Scout Executive James E. West;
George Bridgemen, one of his art
teachers; George Horace Lorimer
of The Saturday Evening Post, and
many others.
"All my life I had been sketching
on bits of paper," Rockwell con-
tinued. "I wasn't husky enough to
be an athlete — and I wasn't much
interested in that. But I liked to
wiggle a pencil until it told some
kind of a story.
38
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 48, Number 2, February 1960, periodical, February 1960; New Brunswick, New Jersey. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth329284/m1/40/: accessed May 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.