The Port olio SPRING 2000 THE NORMAN ROCKWELL MUSEUM at Stockbridge www.nrm.org Director's Thanks On behalf of the board of directors and The Girl Rockwell our staff, 1 have the immense pleasure of announcing a most generous gift from Diane Disney Miller-the 1941 Norman Gave to Disney Rockwell oil painting Girl Reading the Post. This important Saturday Evening David Verzi, External Relations Coordinator Post cover directly ties the art of Norman Rockwell to the magazine that he was The original oil painting for the Saturday Evening Post cover of March 1, associated with for over forty-five years. It was bequeathed to the museum by the 1941, Girl Reading the Post, stands as a token of respect and friendship daughter of the other famous American between two cultural icons- the 20th-century's giants of animation illustrator, Walt Disney. We are so very and illustration. Norman Rockwell gave the painting to Walt Disney in grateful to Diane Disney Miller for her 1943 during the illustrator's brief residence in Alhambra, California. extraordinarily generous act in giving Rockwell inscribed the work, "To Walt Disney, one of the really great this painting to the Norman Rockwell artists- from an admirer, Norman Rockwell." Museum and to people all over the world who come here to experience the incredible joy of seeing original paint­ T he admiration was mutual, as Disney hung in the office of the famed car­ ings by Rockwell. once wrote to Rockwell, "I thought your toonist, then for some years it was in Four Freedoms were great. I especially the home of Disney's daughter, Diane. Mrs. Miller wrote, "1 visited your museum loved Freedom of Worship and the com­ The painting depicts a knob-kneed, last year, loved it, and am pleased to know position and symbolism expressed in it:' coming-of-age school girl. Pictured in that the painting will hang where it belongs:' Upon receipt of Girl Reading the Post, bobby socks, saddle shoes and a Disney penned his appreciation, "I can't plaid skirt, she also wears a cardigan The most important mission of a museum begin to thank you ... my entire staff (accented by a sweetheart pin) over is to collect and present major artworks. have been traipsing a pullover letter With a strong core collection, a museum up to my office to sweater. The seat­ can initiate education programs for adults look at it ... minute­ ed adolescent's lap and children; attract loans for exhibitions ly they inspect it ... is piled with of Rockwell art in private hands, as well as to all of them, you books, her face is works by other famous illustrators; and are some sort of hidden behind a fic­ serve the public in the most informative, interesting and creative ways possible. god:' To further titious issue of the Generous donations such as this enable express his grateful­ Post whose cover us to continue building our collection and ness, the animator carries the por­ fulfilling our mission - to bring the art sent the illustrator a trait of a fashion­ of Norman Rockwell to the people. I set of ceramic fig­ able 1940s invite you to visit the museum, see Girl urines featuring woman. Reading the Post and join us in thanking characters from Diane Disney Miller for this wonderful Pinocchio, Bambi In Girl Reading the new addition. and Fantasia. Post (also called For decades, Girl Girl Reading the Post, oil on canvas, Double Take), - Laurie Norton Moffatt Reading the Post Saturday Evening Post, March, 1941, cover. Rockwell presents, 2 Among the Posts many avid readers, a Rockwell friendship that included a demand grew to see the face behind the spontaneous visit by Walt Disney to fictitious magazine, and, in a subse­ Norman Rockwell's Arlington, quent issue, the Post printed a photo of Vermont, studio. The creator of Millicent Mattison, Rockwell's sixteen­ Mickey Mouse was not recognized year-old model. Dressed and striking and was refused admittance by the same pose as the cover girl, the Rockwell's cook. This incidence per­ smiling face of the Arlington, Vermont haps explains why some of Disney's teenager was seen looking around the correspondence to Rockwell is left side of the Posts March 1st issue. humorously signed "Walt Who ?" Millicent Mattison Riker, who also Diane Disney Miller noted that as posed for the Post cover Hat Check children she and her late sister, Sharon, Girl as well as other Rockwell illustra­ sat for portrait sketches that Rockwell tions, now lives in Byron, Georgia. In gave to her parents. Mrs. Miller a recent telephone conversation, she laughed, "I was about ten-years old said, "Well, I was used to posing for and a real brat about it." We have no Norman Rockwell. It seems everyone way of knowing Norman Rockwell's in Arlington did. Even though he only opinion of that session, but we surely Model Millicent Mattison Riker peers out from behind the Post cover. paid something like twenty-five cents view Mrs. Miller in a much better light an hour, he was always so very nice. than that. Our appreciation for her graphically and figuratively, the theme But, oh, I was very surprised at the kind and generous gift is as boundless of "growing-up." The teenager's shoes nationwide clamor to see my face." as the esteem that Rockwell and gener­ are worn and shabby; her socks are The gift of Girl Reading the Post to ations of Americans have had for her turned down; one foot rests atop the the museum continues the Disney- father's work. other in a girlish pose. Her skirt is unevenly arranged and she sits care­ lessly upon her coat. However, above the books - perhaps suggesting that she is learning - her cardigan, jewelry-bearing pullover and mittens (although not gloves, still fash­ ionably white) show a properly erect, lady-like posture. Where the cardigan meets the neck is a face that blends into and is proportional to the girl's body, but it is the face of the elegant lady that the bobby-socker is hoping to become. It is also seems that Rockwell is making the point that reading the Post Portraits of Diane Disney and Sharon Disney by Norman Rockwell. is an aid to and a sign of maturity. 3 DISTANT SHORES: The Odyssey of Rockwell Kent Why do men love the wilderness? For its mountains? There may be none. For its forests, lakes, and rivers? It might be a desert; men love it still. Desert, the monotonous ocean, the unbroken snowfields of the North all solitudes, no matter how forlorn are the only abiding-place on earth of liberty. -Rockwell Kent W ilderness exploration holds an loan of paintings from the State irresistible attraction for the intrepid. Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Rockwell Kent (1882-1971) was Russia. Scheduled for exhibition at such an explorer. One of America's the Norman Rockwell Museum best-known illustrators for the first from June 24, 2000 through half of the twentieth century, Kent October 29, 2000, Distant Shores will created paintings, admired for their travel to the Appleton Museum of beauty and clarity, that were widely Art, Florida State University, Ocala, exhibited and included in such Florida (November 18, 2000- important collections as the January 29,2001); the Terra Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of American Art, Chicago, Whitney Museum of American Art Illinois (February 24, 200 I-May 20, and the Phillips Collection. 2001) and the Anchorage Museum Throughout the first half of his life, of History and Art in Alaska (June Kent lived, worked and painted in 17,2001- September 23, 2001). back-country regions, including Monhegan Island off the coast of Constance Martin, guest curator Maine, Newfoundland, Alaska, of the exhibition, is a research Tierra del Fuego and Greenland. Greenland Courtship, 1934, 14" x 10'; lithograph. associate at the Arctic Institute of Print Collection. Miriam and Ira D. Wallach North America, University of Distant Shores: The Odyssey of Division of Arts, Prints and Photographs. The New Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and has York Public Library. Astor, Lenox and Tilden Rockwell Kent visually documents published in the field of Arctic Foundation. Kent's yearning and searching history and 19th century art. Her through paintings, drawings, watercolors and prints inspired by research has taken her from her homes in Calgary and his travels to many wilderness areas. Organized by the Norman Stockbridge to the State Hermitage Museum in St. Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge, the exhibition features art Petersburg, Russia, the home of some of Kent's most from private and public collections, including an exceptional famous paintings. 4 A companion book with full color State Art Museum, New York, both will Dogs Resting, Greenland, c. 1937, 34 1/8" plates will accompany the exhibition. feature Kent exhibitions through October x 44 1/8'; oil on canvas. Rockwell Kent Collections, Plattsburgh State Art Museum, Essays by Guest Curator Constance 2000. All three institutions have organized New York. Gift of Sally Kent Gorton. Martin and Richard V. West, director Rockwell Kent Rediscovered, a sympo­ of the Frye Art Museum, Seattle, sium on Rockwell Kent's life and work, Washington, discuss the broad range September 13-16,2000. of Kent's art from aesthetic, social and historical perspectives. Distant Shores: The Odyssey of Rockwell Kent is underwritten in part The Norman Rockwell Museum is col­ with the generous support of R.R. laborating with two other northeastern Donnelley &: Sons Company. museums to present a summer of Rockwell Kent exhibitions and pro­ For more information on the sym­ grams. The Adirondack Museum, Blue posium, please contact the Visitor Mountain Lake, New York, and the Services Office at 413-298-4100, Rockwell Kent Gallery at the Plattsburgh ext 220.