The kid with the camera eye.

• Position: Behind the Camera - Focus

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AN EXHIBITION that sheds new light on Norman Rockwell's art is the first to explore in-depth his richly detailed study photographs, created by the artist as references for his iconic paintings. The exhibit reveals a rarely seen, yet fundamental, aspect of Rockwell's creative process, and unveils a significant new body of his imagery in an unexpected medium.

"Norman Rockwell was a natural storyteller with an unerring eye for detail," says Stephanie Plunkett, deputy director and chief curator of the Norman Rockwell Museum. "This groundbreaking exhibition shows how that narrative instinct found its first expression in the artist's meticulously composed photographs."

The exhibition brings together approximately 120 prints of Rockwell's study photographs and 25 original paintings and drawings linked to the photographs on display. The result is a fascinating frame-by-frame view of the development of some of Rockwell's most indelible images. At the same time, the photographs themselves--painstakingly staged by Rockwell (in bow tie at left) and involving an array of models, costumes, props, and settings--are fully realized works of art in their own right.

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Guest curator Ron Schick is the first researcher to undertake a comprehensive study of the Norman Rockwell Museum's newly digitized photography archives. This repository of nearly 20,000 images encapsulates Rockwell's use of photography over four decades. The fragile acetate negative originals were prioritized for digitization under ProjectNorman. "We are thrilled to welcome independent scholars and curators to work in the Rockwell archive," notes Laurie Moffat, director and CEO of the museum.

"Behind the Camera" is the final major exhibition of the Norman Rockwell Museum's 40th anniversary year. It complements last summer's homecoming of "American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell," a traveling retrospective of Rockwell's career, and "A Day in the Life: Norman Rockwell's Stockbridge Studio," a precise re-creation of the artist's studio at a pivotal moment in his life.

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Early in his career, Rockwell hired professional models to pose for the characters in his paintings. Beginning in the mid 1930s, however, the evolving naturalism of his work led him to embrace photography, which increasingly...