Nostalgic blog post!

Growing up in Westchester County, I joined the Boy Scouts (Troop 174) and have happy boyhood memories of paging through the Boy Scout Handbook. Norman Rockwell’s scouting images were scattered throughout the handbook, and I fell in love with his painting style.

To my knowledge, Norman Rockwell painted two images that included magicians. I have prints of both of these on my wall at home. Would love to locate the originals…

Here is one of Norman Rockwell’s boy scout paintings. I remember this one clearly from the Boy Scout Handbook.

The Norman Rockwell museum is located in Stockbridge, Massachussetts. Several years ago, I did a series of magic shows up in the Berkshires and, on an off day, made a special visit to this museum. Rockwell worked from photographs that he carefully staged to tell a story without words. He positioned his models into just the right poses, took many reference photos, and then painted exactly what he saw in the photographs.

At the moment, the museum is holding an exhibition that displays Rockwell’s original reference photos, side by side with the paintings he created. You can also buy the book: Norman Rockwell – Behind the Camera.