Did my Grandmother Pose for Norman Rockwell?

by Barb, still in book jail

The First Post: Did my Grandmother Pose for Norman Rockwell?

Originally published August 17, 2012 on the Maine Crime Writers

A few weeks ago, my husband Bill and I took advantage of a talk I was doing at the (gorgeous) Lee Library in Lee, MA to spend a few days at the Red Lion Inn in the Berkshires. On the first day, we visited Edith Wharton’s home, The Mount, which I totally recommend. We also saw King Lear at Shakespeare and Company, which was fantastic.

But when we went to breakfast on the second morning, the dining room was abuzz. We were traveling in that vacation news bubble and didn’t know that there had been a fire overnight at a transformer recycling company in nearby Ghent, NY and everyone was urged to stay indoors and turn off their air conditioning.

So we scrapped our plans for the day and decided to revisit the Norman Rockwell Museum because it is, at least, indoors.

After the main tour, I started poking around investigating something I’d wondered about for years. On a much earlier trip to the museum, I’d come around the corner in a exhibit on Rockwell’s early years in advertising and come face to face with…my grandmother. I was so startled, I think I even jumped.

As a child, I’d overheard references to my grandmother modeling for Rockwell, but this was in the sixties when both Rockwell and my grandmother were still alive and the references were in the “Man, we should have held on to those pictures,” vein. I think honestly I only heard it once or twice and I wasn’t sure if the story was apocryphal. It made some sense, yes. Rockwell was working in New Rochelle, New York in the late teens and twenties, which is where my grandmother lived, but beyond that, who knew? I didn’t think to write down details about the drawing the first time I saw it at the museum or take a photo.

But then, a few years ago when I helped my parents move, I found a couple of other illustrations my grandmother had posed for. That seemed to put a little more meat on the bones of the story. So this summer while we were at the museum, I spent time looking through the catalog trying to find that picture and came up with several advertisements that might possibly be my grandmother. And when I got home, I went back to the scrapbook and looked up those other illustrations.

Both have notes on them in my grandmother’s distinctive handwriting that say, “Eleonore Taylor by Coles Phillips.”

C. Coles Phillips was a well known American illustrator who lived and worked in New Rochelle until he died tragically young in 1927 at age 47. He owned his own advertising agency where one of his first employees was his fellow art school student, Edward Hopper.

The first item in the scrapbook was a December 15, 1921 cover of Life Magazine. The “fadeaway” technique of having the outfit and background be the same color is something Phillips was known for. Once you know what you’re looking for, you can find these covers all over the web and I ordered copies for family members.

The second item was just a fragment, an ad for Scranton lace, but you can find the full ad on the internet and I ordered an original via eBay. As with the Life covers, Coles Phillips did a whole series of these ads. This one appeared in the Ladies Home Journal in February, 1922 when my grandmother would have been a junior at Smith College.

But did my grandmother pose for Rockwell? Why keep copies of the Phillips illustrations and not the ones by Rockwell? Of course, I never saw any of them out in her house.  Which is odd because the advertisement for Lord Calvert whiskey my grandfather posed for was always displayed.

Maybe when I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, 1945, when my grandfather appeared in this series of ads, seemed a lot closer than 1922, when my grandmother’s ads appeared. The drawing at the top of this post (artist unknown) I found tucked in her page from her high school yearbook. So she wasn’t about displaying this stuff. I also remember Rockwell being quite out of fashion in those Mad Men days when I was young, dismissed as a mere illustrator of sentimental subjects for unsophisticated tastes. So that might have contributed.

I wrote to the archivist at the museum, Venus Van Ness (which should totally be a character name, don’t you think?). She said they do have some (scant) information on models and she would check.

What do you think?

The Second Post: Did my Grandmother Pose for Norman Rockwell–The Answer

(Or reason number 6,400,057 why I love the World Wide Web)

This post originally appeared on September 10, 2012 on the Maine Crime Writers.

Last month I wrote a blog post about my investigations into whether my grandmother had modeled for Norman Rockwell in the early 1920s.

Well, I think we got the answer!

One of the comments on that blog post said,

“Hello Barbara,

When you have a moment, please feel free to contact me concerning your grandmother and Norman Rockwell. I believe I have the information you’re seeking.

My best,

Robert Berridge

Norman Rockwell historian”

A bit of Googling showed that Robert Berridge was a known Rockwell expert. (For example, he served as a source for Laura Claridge’s 2003 biography Norman Rockwell: A Life). So I wrote him right back. Here’s his response.

“Good Friday morning Barb – happy to help.

After your Grandmother posed for C. Coles Phillips, she modeled for Mr. Rockwell in the following artwork…

* February 25, 1922 cover of the Literary Digest
* Raybestos ad featured in the March 4, 1922 Saturday Evening Post
* March 23, 1922 cover of Life Magazine

Please feel free to send additional information concerning Eleonore.”

This is truly astonishing. Because it means that when I came around that corner at the Rockwell museum that day and thought I saw my grandmother, I actually did. Naturally, as a writer, I started thinking about how I would make this moment believable if it was in a book. The answer is that the first, wholistic impression, the one that takes in the attitude as well as the totality of the physical aspects is the right one. After that, the more you study it, the less sure you are. I had never known my grandmother when she was twenty-one, yet I was positive it was her.

Here’s what I wrote back to Berridge about what I knew about my grandmother during those years.

“As for my grandmother’s New Rochelle days, I don’t know a lot. I think she would have been a junior at Smith college in 1922. Her family had moved to New Rochelle (Sea View Ave) when the suburbs opened up. She was the oldest in the family and always missed New York City–never quite made the switch. Her mother’s family were quite well-known interior designers–A. Kimbel & Son.”

I asked Mr. Berridge how he knew this was my grandmother, and this is what he said,

“Over the past forty years, I’ve conducted thousands of oral interviews, phone calls, letter writings and emails concerning the life and times of Norman Rockwell-a hobby that went out of control!  My archives are vast.

“In the mid 1980’s, I happened to interview a close friend of Mr. Rockwell’s in New Rochelle, NY – a behind the scenes Rockwell biographer of sorts.  In that interview, I received a treasure trove of information including that of your Grandmother Eleonore.

“In November of 1921, Mr. Rockwell traveled to South America.  He started one sketch right before he left and two soon after he came back.  Your Grandmother’s name was given to me as the young woman who modeled for those sketches – the illustrations listed….”

Once I knew what I was looking for, I found the other covers easily on the web. They’re both well-known works. Some people believe the Life cover, “Don’t Say I Said Anything,” is emblematic of Rockwell’s life-long hatred of gossip and presages his much better known Saturday Evening Post cover, “The Gossips.” “The Master Violinist” was made into a Rockwell plate (plate like a dish, not plate as in printing) and depending on the condition and lighting, you can see her face much more clearly.

All of the artwork my grandmother appears in, both the C. Coles Phillips pieces and the Rockwell ones, was published in a period of a few months between December, 1921 and March, 1922. I have no idea what lead times were like in publishing in those days, but it makes me wonder if my grandmother spent the summer between her sophomore and junior years in college modeling.

It must be noted here that Venus Van Ness, the archivist at the Rockwell Museum writes that there is no documentation to support the oral histories Berridge collected in this case.  Here’s her response.

“I spoke with Robert Berridge last week about your grandmother.  Based on the extensive oral histories that he has conducted with individuals connected with Rockwell, he determined that your grandmother was in fact a model for Rockwell.  He didn’t provide me with any real specifics or documentation, however, so that basically still leaves me at square one.

“Unfortunately because the dates in question are so early in Rockwell’s career, it’s difficult to find supporting documentation.  One source that we rely on here are Rockwell’s check registers.  In many cases, the check stubs show us who modeled for Rockwell, the date(s), the particular work, as well as how much they were paid.  The problem is that these check registers only date back to 1937.  Additionally, the business correspondence collection that we have has very few items from the teens and twenties.

“So, to make a long story short, I can’t confirm that grandmother was a model for Rockwell.  However, based on the dates, the fact that she lived in New Rochelle, and had worked as a model for other artists, makes it very possible.  At that time in Rockwell’s early career, he did employ professional models.  Your grandmother may very well have been one of them.

“So sorry that I couldn’t be more definitive in my response.  Best of luck with your continued searching.”

So there is still a leap of faith here, though a much tinier leap than before.

Today

Since the original posts went up, I’ve found a couple of articles about the Raybestos ad, both in communications from the Rockwell Museum.

A 1986 article about the acquisition says, “Painted on canvas en grisaille, the picture is interesting for several reasons. The black and white palette reveals that the advertiser chose not to go to the expense of color printing. The ad predates the use of photography in advertising work and is one of seven known pieces done for the Raybestos company. It is one of the few Rockwell works which treat the subject of mother and daughter, and it is the only one in the series which is clearly aimed at the female reader. The picture is important as an addition to the collection since advertising art is not well represented in the Museum’s holdings.”

The image also illustrates the website for a 2020 exhibit on Rockwell’s paintings of women and girls. Part of the text says,

“This exhibition takes a lively look at Rockwell’s approach to painting women and girls. According to Rockwell, ‘…I paint the kind of girls your mother would want you to marry,’ but in fact, many of his female protagonists were strong and savvy. In his early career, he hired professional female models to pose for him, painting with a narrative realism that made his characters relatable to magazine’s target audience, women.”

So that’s it, long story long. I must say the journey on this investigation was a fun as the result.

Readers: Have you ever gone on an investigation where the journey was as much fun as the results?