Rockwell Museum
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
June 23, 2024
At the entrance
Earlier this summer we spent some time at the family camp on Pine Island Lake in Westhampton, Massachusetts. We made hiking a focus this visit and had gone out tramping in the woods two days already. We planned to try a new spot after Mass on Sunday, but the weather was a little drizzly. Why go out in the wet woods when you don’t have to? Instead, Meredith suggested a visit to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge. We enjoyed seeing the museum several years ago, and Bob had checked their website a few weeks earlier just to see what special exhibition might be on this summer. It is a retrospective of art from MAD Magazine, running from June 8, 2024 through October 27, 2024. The name of an artist we know from San Diego Comic-Con, Sergio Aragones, was on the list. We set out.
It was a pleasant drive to Stockbridge. We took Route 9 to avoid the “soul destroying” monotony (Meredith’s expression) of the Massachusetts Turnpike. As we headed up into the Berkshires the weather improved, and the day turned fine and hot.
With “Grendel”
Once inside we began as we had the last time, by going downstairs to see the well done, short documentary outlining the facts of Rockwell’s life. The video is narrated by his oldest son Peter, who also became an artist and whose sculptures can be seen as one walks to the museum from the parking area.
As you sit to view the film, you are surrounded by the framed covers of all of the Saturday Evening Post magazines on which his art appeared during his long career, 323 of them. We perused these and again were struck by the beauty and humor of his storytelling works. As Rockwell said, “I love to tell stories in pictures;” that was his passion, and his images needed no words. We both agreed, as students of history, that one intriguing aspect of this display is the way it chronicles the changes in American society over the decades, while also showing the unchanging characteristics of human nature. Bob was taken by the number of well-known authors whose names appeared on the cover of the issues that bore their work. Some are still widely read, like P.G. Wodehouse, Other authors are merely names to people of our generation, vaguely familiar because they were popular with our parents and grandparents, like Mary Roberts Rinehart. Rinehart is best known as a mystery writer and is credited with creating the phrase, “The butler did it,” although in her book the butler actually did.
At last, the special exhibition!
We moved on to the special exhibition, which took up much of the first floor of the museum. Organized chronologically, it laid out the history of the visual art used in MAD Magazine, from its early years beginning in 1952 through its original run ending in 2018. A reboot of the magazine was created that year, largely recycling material from the original. Bob got a kick out of some Peanuts cartoons that led up to the final strip of that week, when Charlie Brown gazes at the horizon and the sunrise is represented by the head of Alfred E. Neuman with the caption “What! Me worry?” Sergio Aragones apparently organized the use of the MAD icon by his longtime friend Charles Schulz.
We also found interesting the legal battle over the development of the magazine’s visual mascot. The widow of an artist who drew a similar goofy, gap-toothed kid with the same catch phrase sued the magazine. The court found for MAD when they presented evidence of the general concept being used in the late nineteenth century and even the image of a “Me worry?” kid being used to sell war bonds in the 1940s, before the widow’s husband had used the image.
Another item of historical interest was correspondence between Rockwell and MAD. He had been approached about doing a piece for the publication and had tentatively agreed, but before a contract was signed he wrote a letter expressing his hesitation and backing out of the deal.
Apart from the historical items, the MAD Magazine art was a pleasant stroll down memory lane. Bob was never an avid MAD consumer, but he did always enjoy the Spy v. Spy piece. It was fun to see the evolution of the characters illustrated in the exhibit. The variety of artistic styles used by the various artists appealed to him. He also liked the examples of the movie send-ups, particularly those of the Godfather films. Meredith was much more in touch with the magazine when she was growing up. Though not a subscriber, her father was a fan and would always pick one up at the newsstand (there’s something you wouldn’t do today!) when he noticed that the latest issue was on display. Meredith liked the Rockwell send-ups and was particularly taken by the picture of Alfred E. Neuman painting his self-portrait—only Neuman looking at himself in the mirror was painting the back of his head! The details on that piece were very clever as well—where Rockwell had posted on his easel examples of such portraits by famous artists, Neuman had pictures of other comic characters.
Meredith also remembered vividly her enjoyment of the fold-in section of the magazine. There was a display of several examples, and she puzzled quite a while before each trying to figure out the joke that would be revealed were one to fold in the image. It was only when we were near the end of viewing these panels that Bob noticed there was a picture of the folded in sheets below each page. The museum should have better pointed those out to the viewers as they were not immediately obvious.
A last family observation. We began this blog years ago when we would visit Meredith’s mother in Los Angeles. As her physical capabilities, and later her mental ones, faded, we found that going to museums was a good activity—it allowed Margaret to be pushed in a wheelchair, and we could tailor the pace and interactions with her to fit her attention span on the day. Meredith’s father happened to call her while we were at the Rockwell Museum. She greatly enjoyed telling him about the MAD exhibition, and they shared fond memories of things they had each enjoyed about the magazine. Since he is a sharp and well-educated man, he also enjoyed hearing about the Saturday Evening Post covers and the Four Freedoms permanent display.
The museum is easy to reach in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. We drove past the main entrances to the Tanglewood Music Center, and although people were arriving for the evening concert when we drove home, traffic was not a problem. Admission to the museum is $25 for non-members. Rockwell’s studio building, which was moved from the center of town to the museum campus in 1986, is open for viewing. We explored it on our previous trip in the Fall of 2017 but not this time. To ensure admission to the studio, the museum recommends taking one of the scheduled tours which cost $10. Parking is free and plentiful. The museum is handicapped accessible. It has an elevator between the main and lower levels, and walkways on the grounds are paved and slope gently.
We spent more time in the gift shop than on our previous visit. Visitors can purchase postcards and prints of many of the items on view, and shipping can be arranged. Meredith bought some coasters, both to bring home and to leave at our lake house in Massachusetts. Also on this trip we enjoyed picking things out for our granddaughters, both of whom have summer birthdays and were coming to the lake the next week. The six year old has enjoyed, our daughter reported later, the book of the Rockwell series A Day in the Life of a Girl, which was turned into a book with the permission of the estate and has added text. There is a museum café, but we did not eat there. Instead, we enjoyed a late lunch at Pleasant and Main, a café in Housatonic a short drive from the museum. The setting is a little quirky—it bills itself as a general store as well and seemed to be doing a business as an antique store too. The food was excellent and reasonably priced. The service was a little quirky also. We were given complimentary mimosas, very nice, but Meredith was served a crepe rather than the quiche she had ordered. We made no fuss, and both ended up enjoying the goat cheese and spinach crepe. The berry crepe for dessert was also excellent.
Note: to be respectful of copyrights, we have not pulled Rockwell painting images into this post. The collection can be searched on the museum website. We invite you to explore the extensive archives on that site, which include source materials such as photos, as well as the finished paintings.