Norman Rockwell’s reinstalled studio opens to the public

Norman Rockwell’s reinstalled studio opens

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — The Norman Rockwell Museum has taken the artist’s studio back in time to 1960.

That’s when, the museum says, the artist began to incorporate themes of civil and human rights into his art. One painting that appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1961 was called “Golden Rule,” showing people of different religions, races and ethnicities with the phrase “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” in capital letters.

Rockwell acquired the studio in Stockbridge, in Western Massachusetts, in 1957, and described the building as “my best studio yet.” The museum moved the studio to its current site overlooking the Housatonic River in 1986. Until the reinstallation making the studio appear the way it did in 1960, it had been preserved as it was when he died in 1978.

The reinstallation, called “A Day in the Life: Norman Rockwell’s Stockbridge Studio,” displays reproductions of works by artists who inspired Rockwell, including Breughel and Picasso; Rockwell’s personal library of 500 volumes; his original palette, easel and paintbrushes, and other items and artifacts.

The opening of the studio kicked off the museum’s 40th anniversary summer season.

A companion exhibition in the museum explores the restoration of Rockwell’s unfinished work, “United Nations,” a six-foot-long charcoal drawing that was a precursor to “Golden Rule.”

The studio is open May-October, 10 a.m.4:45 p.m., and the museum is open year-round. Details at www.nrm.org/.