Norman Rockwell was a member of the Monday Evening Club from 1961 until his death in 1978. Previously, we have posted two papers for which standard manuscript drafts survive: "The bed of Procrustes" and "Which way?" The recollection of members who were Rockwell's contemporaries in the Club is, however, that normally Rockwell spoke extemporaneously about a painting or drawing he would bring to the meeting, with at most a few scribbled notes. We reproduce here transcriptions of two such sets of notes, taken from undated manuscripts in the collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass. In these transcriptions, spelling and punctuation is generally left as it is in the original. While we can not gather the full impact of Rockwell's storytelling from these notes, there is enough to get the gist of the talk and perhaps to glean a few of the opinions he expressed.
The Club is grateful for the assistance of Corry Kanzenburg and Jessika Drmacich of the collections staff at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass. for providing access to the manuscript of this and other papers Rockwell presented to the Club, to the museum's director, Laurie Norton Moffatt, for alerting us to their existence (via a Facebook comment!) and to the Norman Rockwell Licensing Company for permission to publish the papers. Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
The first paper is entitled "Extra Ordinary Men," in which Rockwell recalls his experiences creating portraits of some of the leading political figures of his time. Rockwell appears to have incorporated bits from another speech about these subjects into this presentation.
[Addendum:] According to a Club invitation card in the collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum, this paper was delivered on Monday evening, January 18, 1971 at the home of Harry E. Judson on Tor Court in Pittsfield.
[Envelope:] Monday Evening Club
To Albert Silverman
Silverman [a Berkshire County attorney; not a club member]
[handwritten notes]
After Roger’s wonderful paper two weeks ago [Roger Linscott], which was so well done and thorough. I feel this may be quite trivial, disjointed and perhaps even frivolous and overpersonal.
The title, you know, is “Extra Ordinary Men?”
First all all [sic] I must explain my contact with each man was for less than an hour.
I[n] every case I made a very rough color sketch and then I posed them for my photographer.
I posed them against a neutral color blanket, s most of them posed in their offices. I took along what I called a blanket man, to cut out the convusion of the locations. I call him my “Blan[k]et Man.”
I repeat I was never with them more than an hour.
That was all the time they could give me out of their busy days.
What I would like to have you discuss is whether these little incidents that occur[r]ed could be considered indicative of their true charcter or completely unimportant.
May I pause now to quote from a book by G? W. Gardner
He is distinguished thinker.
Quote
“No one who has received the sweep of American history will believe that our leaders are any more deficient in in quality than they were a decade or a century ago. That they seem so is due partly to the breakdown in authority and partly to our increased skill in stripping them of dignity. Men in power have never been fully protected by the mantle of respect surrounding high office but today they are naked as bluejays.”
End quote
I shall now relate these incidents more or less as they occurred.
Nehru
Nasser
Tito
Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Bob Kennedy
Adlai Stevenson
Goldwater
Johnson
Hubert Humphrey
McCormick
Nelson Rockefeller
Reagan
Niebuhr
Erik Erikson
Notes from other talks about some of these:
[Envelope:] Brief notes only
Speech about trip with Bob Sherrod [American journalist]
Thank you.
5 minutes for Europe
This is no travel talk
It’s about 3 Individuals I met
I only saw them 1 hour each
Post
Change of policy
Task Force
Bob Sherrod
Ellie Atkins
Wife
Molly [Rockwell] studied their live[s]
I did not
First trip India
Mr. Nehru
China Invading
Nehru and Gandhi
Peace and None Resistance
—
Nehru in Parlement
Calm and soft spoken
“I mislaid my brain”
Lunch at prime minister’s
Daughter
White Coat
Next Moscow
Called off
More about this later
Home
March 7th
Off to Mr. Nasser
Arrive 5 minutes to see Nasser
His home
I pose him
Mr. Haekel and Nasser in Saudi Arabia
Jimmy and the Sphinx
Next to Tito
Belgrade grim
New Constitution
Start 7 a.m.
Tito arrive 4:30 p.m.
Blond Hair
Cold after Egypt
To Dubrovic [sic]
Sneak picture to Holland
Home
3 individuals
Nehru
Quiet
Man of peace
Educated
Nasser
Young
Uneducated
Energetic
Tito
Man of power holding 5 nations together.
All loved by their people
Reverenced
The second set of notes pertains to a paper about the autobiography Rockwell wrote and published in 1960, My Adventures as an Illustrator. This paper must have been presented to the Club about 1961. The numbering of pages begins with 2 and is not consecutive throughout.
2.
Not an Art Lecture
Profound and erudite
3.
About the Autobiography published last year
I will try [to] tell how Autobiography came about.
4.
Start as book of color plates with commentary
Doubleday
Ghost writer
No humor
Success story
5
Sent Ghostwrites
6 weeks
Success Story?
9
I am desperate
Doubleday editor gone to Europe
I call Ken Stuart
10
Ken Stuart fires Ghost
I suggest Tom
11
We took 1 year
Kitchen
Arguments
No longer commentary
1400 Words
12
We show it to Doubleday
They show it to Post
13
Ben, Ken + Bob
Invite me to lunch
BOOM!!
14.
Produced in Post
Cleaned up
15.
Now comes
IMPORTANT
checking
For instance
16.
Dumb Waiter Story and Texas Wyman [?]
Checking
Old newspapers
city records
Police
18
Opera
Emmy Destinn
“Change Eonds [?], You darn fool”
19
Corset Story
20
Then the lawyers Libel
Dead Men
Tom [Rockwell, Norman's son, who collaborated on the book] did fine job
21
Publicity
6 radio
2 TV
arranged by Post
22
Jack Paar
Godfrey
Martha Dean
Senator Dirksen
Barry Gray
23
Press Notices
Atlantic Monthly
Favorable
But one phrase
“His prose descriptions are very effective, cold and almost savage with controlled fury.”
24
unfavorable
A.P.
Ends with
“It [is] a nice story of a nice man who knows a lot of nice people and leads a very nice life.”
Possible?
I paint the leader speech
[end of notes]
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