Road Trip: Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge and the Boston Public Library

Panorama of Norman Rockwell's Studio It was moved here to the museum grounds from the town

I just got back from a vacation in the Northeast. While we were up there we saw some AMAZING art.

On Tuesday, we went to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA. If you are anywhere close, I highly recommend a stop there. Currently there is an awesome exhibit on Howard Pyle. I had seen a different collection of his work at the Brandywine Museum several years ago, but was excited to see more of his work..

They have a new exhibit of Alex Ross' work going up in November. If that is not worth a road trip, I do not know what is.

Amazingly, they allowed non-flash photos.

They had a great deal that you got a free hardcover NR book if you spent $100. Sooooo, I got a lot of books.

Norman Rockwell's bike...

 My sketches from the trip:

Pages from my (Christina Wald) sketchbook from the visit...

On Wednesday, we went to the Boston Public Library. I have a friend who works there who had bragged for years about how fantastic the paintings there were. He was right.

This is also a must see for illustrators especially due to the murals by Edwin Abbey (The Quest for the Holy Grail) and John Singer Sargent (Triumph of Religion). (There is a lot of other art there as well).

My puny pictures do not do the murals justice, but there are some good sites for more info: http://www.sargentmurals.bpl.org/site/index.html
http://www.bpl.org/central/abbey.htm

John Singer Sargent: Image of early religions at the far end of the hall The mural has two blank, unfinished walls because the artist died before completion.

Sargent Detail: I will bet JSS never expected his work to be ruined by iPhone photos.

Edwin Abbey: Grail Quest Scene

Edwin Abbey: Grail Quest Scene... EA probably did not expect the iPhone photo thing either...

Edwin Abbey: Another Grail Quest Scene

Interesting Article about Howard Pyle

Interesting article on Salon about Howard Pyle and his influence on how a lot of things in pop culture are still visualized.

Couple good lines: 

"How much do you know about the 19th-century American illustrator whose work left Vincent van Gogh “dumb with admiration”?"

"Sometime around the turn of the century, illustration got written out of the history of art. For lots of reasons: its commercial associations, the advent of photography. Illustration got sidelined as kind of a poor, younger sister to the fine arts. So the premise of the exhibition is to suggest that despite the fact that Howard Pyle is normally only looked at as an illustrator, he was as aware of — and as much a participant in — the art of his time as any of the fine artists."


 http://www.salon.com/2011/11/12/pirates_patriots_and_paladins_the_lush_visions_of_a_master_illustrator/singleton/

Wish I could see the exhibit; but I did see a large collection of his work at the Brandywine a couple of years ago.