The most popular American illustrator at mid-century, subsequently dismissed by the generation whose times he chronicled as being kitschy and out of touch, is at last being reconsidered in two major exhibitions now touring the country.

Norman Rockwell, best known for the covers he created for the Saturday Evening Post, is now being celebrated for the genius of his working methods and for his photography setups, which he created as reference for his paintings. This weekend the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts opens Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, an exhibition that explores in depth the artist's richly detailed study photographs. Organized with author and guest curator Ron Schick, whose book of the same title is the first to draw upon the museum's newly digitized photo archives, reveals a rarely seen but fundamental aspect of Rockwell's creative process.

Photo prep and finished illustrations for Breakfast Table Political Argument (1948), Girl at Mirror (1954), and The Runaway (1958), courtesy Norman Rockwell Museum.

Early in his career, according to the press release, Rockwell hired professional models to pose for the characters in his paintings. Beginning in the mid-1930s, however, the evolving naturalism of his work led him to embrace photography, which had increasingly come in vogue as a useful tool for fine artists and a natural ally of commercial illustrators working on tight deadlines.

For Rockwell, known as "the kid with the camera eye," photography was more than an artist's aid. The camera brought a new flesh-and-blood realism to his work, and opened a window to the keenly observed authenticity that defines his art.

"Photography has been a benevolent tool for artists from Thomas Eakins and Edgar Degas to David Hockney," notes Schick. "But the thousands of photographs Norman Rockwell created as studies for his iconic images are a case apart." Exceptional in scope and detail, these study photographs are distinguished by Rockwell's gift for character and narrative. And for viewers today, says Schick, they elicit "a haunting sense of deja vu, mirroring his masterworks in a tangible parallel universe."

On view at Norman Rockwell Museum through May 31, 2010, Behind the Camera opens Saturday, November 7^th with a reception and book-signing from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Guest curator Ron Schick will discuss his work on the exhibition and his use of the museum's newly digitized photographic archive, ProjectNORMAN. For information and directions, please visit the website.

This is the final major exhibition of Norman Rockwell Museum's 40th anniversary year. It complements American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell, the museum's traveling retrospective of Rockwell's career, which opens next week at The Museum of Art, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and will travel to The Brooklyn Museum in February of 2011.

For an in-depth profile of Norman Rockwell's use of photography and his contributions to the art of an American century, read "Norman Rockwell's American Dream" by David Kamp in the November issue of Vanity Fair.