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My Adventures as an Illustrator 'I Meet the Body Beautiful' 1959
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)
In Chapter III Rockwell recalled his days and experiences as an art student. Recognizing his early talent, Rockwell's mother and father encouraged their son in his pursuit of art training. In his freshman year of Mamaroneck High, Rockwell received permission to take afternoon classes at the Chase School of Art in Manhattan and by the end of his sophomore year he left school permanently to study art full time. He next enrolled at the National Academy but finding it very formal and growing weary of drawing from plaster casts, transferred to the Art Students League where he signed up for classes in anatomy, illustration and drawing. After the suffocating atmosphere of the Academy, Rockwell flourished at the more progressive League where the maturity of the students was assumed and embraced. Remembering what it was like to draw from live models, Rockwell recalled in detail their role. "The models were our comrades in art; together we were creating something fine. They weren't the flotsam and jetsam of the city-tramps and bums-but artists. Modeling was a regular profession." "Some of the models didn't bother to put on a kimono during the rest periods. One, a Russian girl, used to smoke cigars. She'd light up and puffing away, stroll among us nude, commenting in broken English on our drawings." |