Norman Rockwell in Black & White.

• Position: Art Scene - 'NORMAN ROCKWELL in Black and White: Drawings for Classic Saturday Evening Post Covers'

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"NORMAN ROCKWELL in Black & White: Drawings for Classic Saturday Evening Post Covers features rarely-seen preparatory drawings created by the artist, offering intriguing insights into his creative process. Before Rockwell began an oil-on-canvas painting, he carefully prepared a full-scale charcoal drawing. To him. the final drawing was the real foundation of a picture. All issues of composition, tone. and detail were resolved at this stage, with revisions being made until the drawing expressed the story exactly as Rockwell intended.

The exhibition highlights the artist's process through eight lively illustrations, including such classics as "Yankee Doodle" (1937), "The Boy Who Put the World on Wheels" (1952), "The Art Critic" (1955), "Just Married" (1957), "Before the Shot" (1958), and "Family Tree" (1959).

"I take the making of the charcoal layouts very seriously," Rockwell once remarked. "Too many novices. I believe, wait until they are on the canvas before trying to solve many of their problems. It is much better to wrestle with them ahead through studies." Knowing that the success of his storytelling covers and advertisements depended on the strength of his ideas, Rockwell struggled to develop engaging picture themes. (The exhibition includes such unpublished ideas as "War News" and "Murder Mystery.") Since he was as thorough in working out composition, tonal values, and pictorial details in the final drawings, Rockwell's preparatory illustrations stand on their own as remarkably rendered works of art.

Born in 1894 in New York City, Rockwell always wanted to be an artist. In 1910, he left high school to study at the National Academy of Design. He soon transferred to the Art Students League, where he studied with Thomas Fogarty and George Bridgman. Rockwell found success early. While still in his teens, he was hired as art director of Boys' Life, the official publication of the Boy Scouts of America, and began a successful freelance career illustrating a variety of young people's publications.

At age 21, Rockwell's family moved to New Rochelle, N.Y. There, Rockwell set up a studio with the cartoonist Clyde Forsythe and produced work for such magazines as Life, Literary Digest, and Country Gentleman. In 1916, Rockwell married his first wife, Irene O'Connor, and painted his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post, the magazine he considered to be the "greatest show window in America," Over the next 47 years, 321 Rockwell works would appear on the cover of the Post. In 1930, he divorced O'Connor and married Mary Barstow. a schoolteacher, and the couple had three sons--Jarvis, Thomas. and Peter. The family moved to Arlington. Vt., in 1939. and Rockwell's work began, more consistently, to reflect small-town American life.

In 1943, inspired by Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's address to Congress, Rockwell painted the "Four Freedoms." His interpretations of "Freedom of Speech," "Freedom to Worship." "Freedom From Want," and "Freedom From Fear' proved to be enormously popular. The works toured the country in an exhibition that was sponsored jointly by the Post and the Treasury Department and, through the sale of war bonds, raised more than $130,000,000 for the war effort.

In 1953. the Rockwell family moved to Stockbridge, Mass. Six years later, Mary Barstow Rockwell died unexpectedly...