A thin line separates the monkey and the lion in the sketch for "The Whole Court Was Filled with Confusion, Though the Animals, with No Attempt to Injure Anybody, Made Their Way Close to the Side of the Peasant." The line is not an accident or, as some assume when they see it in person, a crack in the glass of its frame. The line is the result of Norman Rockwell literally cutting the monkey and cobra out of the final image.

In "Study for The Problem We All Live With, 1963," we see Lynda Gunn, one of two models for “The Problem We All Live With." Lynda and her first cousin, Anita, both modeled for the painting.

A thin line separates the monkey and the lion in the sketch for "The Whole Court Was Filled with Confusion, Though the Animals, with No Attempt to Injure Anybody, Made Their Way Close to the Side of the Peasant." The line is not an accident or, as some assume when they see it in person, a crack in the glass of its frame. The line is the result of Norman Rockwell literally cutting the monkey and cobra out of the final image.

STOCKBRIDGE — Paint did not touch the canvas on Norman Rockwell’s easel before any of his works had gone through a rigorous drawing process.

His multi-step approach included sketches, posed models, photographic references, and at least one large-scale charcoal or graphite drawing that would later be traced onto his canvas. Sometimes, he would cut pieces from a sketch, removing the offending part he no longer felt added to the work as a whole.

What: "Norman Rockwell: Drawings," an exhibition featuring rarely-seen Norman Rockwell drawings and preliminary studies from his six-decade career.

Where: Norman Rockwell Museum, 9 Glendale Road, Stockbridge

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday through Tuesday.

Beginning Nov. 7: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m, Saturday and Sunday. Closed Wednesdays.

Tickets and information: 413-298-4100, nrm.org

COVID policy: Masks are recommended but not required in the museum. Masks are required for studio tours.

In the sketch for “The Whole Court Was Filled with Confusion, Though the Animals, with No Attempt to Injure Anybody, Made Their Way Close to the Side of the Peasant,” Rockwell’s self-editing is ever present.

“Everybody thinks we’ve cracked the glass on this one and that’s not the case,” Margrit Hotchkiss, the Norman Rockwell Museum’s chief marketing officer, pointing to what appears to be a crack in the glass covering the painting.

But the thin line, as she said, is not in the glass, but the result of a pair of scissors or some other sharp instrument that sliced, preciously, between a monkey holding a cobra in its hand and the back of a lion that it was sitting on.

“These are preliminary drawings for a painting that he is about to do. He’s working out his problem. He obviously did not like it, his depiction of the monkey and the snake. He cut it out and put a new piece of paper in its place,” she said.

The work is part of “Norman Rockwell: Drawings,” an exhibit of rarely seen Rockwell drawings and preliminary studies from the illustrator’s six-decade career, on view at the Norman Rockwell Museum through Jan. 7, 2023.

The show includes some of his early works, as he embarks on his path as an illustrator.

One of the rare pieces on display, done in 1912, was made by Rockwell for an art school assignment.

“He loved Charles Dickens, because his father used to read to them around the dinner table when he was a boy. So when it came time to do a illustration, he chose to do one from ‘Christmas Carol.’ It’s a scene from when the Ghost of Christmas Present is looming with Scrooge and watching over the party. It’s of a couple, who are courting, who have been caught up in this game of Blind Man Bluff,” said Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, chief curator and deputy director of the museum. “But what I think is interesting about it, is he’s trying to create a feeling of expression and individuality in his work, but he doesn’t quite have the skill. It will be a few more years, I’d say. This is 1912. He was much closer when he did his first cover for the [Saturday Evening] Post in 1917.”

In those early works on paper, sketches in pencil and graphite, are small hints of a young Rockwell trying to figure out everything, right down the size and style of his signature.

More significant, is the ability in this exhibition to watch Rockwell and his artistic process grow and mature over time.

In "Study for The Problem We All Live With, 1963," we see Lynda Gunn, one of two models for “The Problem We All Live With." Lynda and her first cousin, Anita, both modeled for the painting.

Originally, Rockwell worked with studio models who were present for his entire artistic process, which had anywhere from five to 15 steps. But in 1935, while working on commission to illustrate a new edition of “Tom Sawyer,” Rockwell began incorporating photographs into his process. It would be a game changer for the illustrator. No longer was he limited to poses that studio models could hold for long periods of time or by the need to have cumbersome props available at all times. Photographic references sped up a small part of his artistic process.

“The way he worked was he’d generally do a thumbnail sketch, a selection or a series of them that maybe an art director would look at and they’d say, ‘Let’s go in this direction.’ As soon as an idea was approved he would start gathering the models, the props — he’d bring people into studio to photograph them,” Plunkett said.

For the Jan. 6, 1964 Look magazine cover, featuring “The Problem We All Live With,” Rockwell used two young girls, Lynda and Anita Gunn, first cousins and granddaughters of Berkshire County NAACP chairman David Gunn, as the models for Ruby Bridges.

On display are photographs of Lynda and Anita, both wearing white dresses and shoes, posed mid-step.

“What you’re seeing here is really fun. Lynda’s father is steadying her because Rockwell has asked her to put her heel and her toe of on these two two-by-fours, making her look as if she’s actually walking, even though in actuality nobody walks with their toe so high up in the air. But it helped him to give a sense of movement,” she said.

Other photographs associated with the painting show how Rockwell played with the idea of including protestors in the painting.

“In the real news stories there were people who had signs, who were surrounding the school, protesting the integration of the school. So he thought about replicating that,” Plunkett said. “I think what he probably determined, finally, was that was not going to be a good pictorial decision. But he took pictures of things like concrete walls. He actually threw tomatoes at a board to see what the splatter looked like.”

The best photos would become the basis for his final painting, which began as a full-size charcoal sketch. When he was satisfied with a piece the work was enlarged by projection onto a larger board. From there, photographs were used for toning and shading. When complete, this image was moved to canvas with the aid of transfer paper and and paint could finally be laid.

Many of the drawings in the show, Plunkett said, were rolled up and in pieces when they came to the museum, as Rockwell had never anticipated them for display.

“He kept them in a studio and in piles. Sometimes he cut out a piece that he didn’t like and he’d glue the part he liked on a new sheet. He’d do it with rubber cement which is unstable,” she said. “We’ve done a lot of work in conserving the collection by bringing it up to the Williamstown, Art Conservation Center and they have conserved quite a few of these. So now, they’re in good shape, thankfully, for the next few generations.”

ON VIEW Jennifer Huberdeau can be reached at jhuberdeau@berkshireeagle.com or 413-496-6229. On Twitter: @BE_DigitalJen

Jennifer Huberdeau can be reached at jhuberdeau@berkshireeagle.com or 413-496-6229. On Twitter: @BE_DigitalJen

Jennifer Huberdeau is The Eagle's features editor. Prior to The Eagle, she worked at The North Adams Transcript. She is a 2021 Rabkin Award Winner, 2020 New England First Amendment Institute Fellow and a 2010 BCBS Health Care Fellow.

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