NORMAN ROCKWELL: BEHIND THE CAMERA

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is the first in-depth study of the illustrator’s remarkable yet little known reference photographs. I spent three years researching in the Norman Rockwell Museum’s archive of nearly 20,000 photographs and interviewed nearly a dozen of Rockwell’s models. In 2009, Little, Brown & Co. published my book and the Norman Rockwell Museum debuted the parallel exhibition. Together they reveal a rarely seen yet fundamental aspect of Rockwell's creative process, and unveil an important new body of Rockwell imagery in an unexpected medium.

Major features on Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera appeared in Vanity Fair and Smithsonian Magazine and The New Yorker and Time posted online galleries. Amazon, Barnes & Noble and NPR all listed it among their Best Books of 2009. The exhibition has traveled to fourteen U.S. venues, among them Brooklyn Museum in New York City, George Eastman House, Rochester NY., Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville AL, Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa OK, and in 2021-2022 the Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury CT. Press includes reviews by The New York Times and New York Magazine and TV coverage by WCBS and WNET.

"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, 2009

" If you think you know all you need to know about Norman Rockwell, think again. 'Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera' at the Brooklyn Museum is a revelation. . . . it is now possible to view Rockwell’s photography not only as a means but also as an arresting end in itself."

 —Ken Johnson, The New York Times, 2010