Revealed: The real-life muses Norman Rockwell used to create his iconic illustrations

These stunning images cast fresh light on the iconic illustrations of Norman Rockwell, revealing for the first time the study photographs the famed artist used as references for his work.

Staged by the artist, and often featuring him too, his compositions were put together in painstaking detail in his studio before being committed to canvas.

He would piece together his desired scene using carefully selected props and locations, then instruct a cameraman when to shoot, much as a film director would a cinematographer.

A group of girls chat over a diner counter with a waiter while a shy-looking boy watches on

Three photographs were pieced together by Rockwell to create the desired composition

Working largely with friends and family rather than professional models, Rockwell captured everyday faces in a raw and natural capacity.

From eye-line to body language, every element was deliberately staged and tells a story.

Rockwell would then work from the prints to create his celebrated paintings, achieving a flesh-and-blood realism through the use of photography, snapping more than 20,000 images over four decades.



Now, almost 34 years after his death, his eye for detail is being showcased in a new exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts.



A tattoo artist crosses out a former lover's name on a customer's arm, inking him with another

The illustration was inspired by this photograph of a tattooed sailor, then embellished

Compilation entitled 'day in the life of a little girl' shows just that, drawn from a series of carefully staged photographs

This compilation of black-and-white photographs shows frame-by-frame the images staged by Rockwell from which to sketch

'Photography has been a benevolent tool for artists from Thomas Eakins and Edgar Degas to David Hockney,' said Curator Ron Schick.

'But the thousands of photographs Norman Rockwell created as studies for his iconic images are a case apart.'

The photos are works of art themselves and have been paired with their corresponding illustrations in Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, providing a frame-by-frame view of Rockwell's image development.

From a couple in a marriage counselor's waiting room, to a father and son ordering at a diner, Rockwell's images bear remarkable likeness to the photographs.

A couple sit in the waiting room of a marriage counselor's office, the man with a nasty-looking black eye

There is no black eye in the photograph, that was added by Rockwell so as to tell his desired story

Rockwell goes into painstaking detail in this illustration through the window of a barber shop

The photograph is less detailed in the foreground, suggesting Rockwell used a secondary photo to create is image

In some Rockwell selected just part of the photograph to replicate, such as one of a young girl peering over a train seat.

Rockwell took the girl's image and paired it with one of lover's on a train.

In others he would take several photographs and piece them together to form his desired composition.



In this image a young girl dressed in white walks among government officials

Rockwell took several shots of the girl in order to get the perfect on from which to sketch

A young girl peers over the back of a train seat, spying on a pair of lovers

Rockwell used the image of the young girl from this photograph, then dressed it up with his own creativity

One such shows a gaggle of girls chatting over a diner counter with the waiter, inspired by three separate frames.



'Norman Rockwell was a natural storyteller with an unerring eye for detail,' says Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of Norman Rockwell Museum.



'This ground-breaking exhibition shows how that narrative instinct found its first expression in the artist’s meticulously composed photographs.'