📍Main Street, Stockbridge, MA 01262, USA
1953 – 1978“I grew up in New York City apartments, a skinny, pigeon-toed boy who was no good at sports, and I found that drawing won me friends and respect. Summers in the countryside gave me my ideal of small-town America. I became an illustrator young, and for decades my covers for The Saturday Evening Post were seen in millions of homes. In 1953, after years in Arlington, Vermont, my wife Mary and I moved to Stockbridge, in Massachusetts's Berkshire hills, partly so that she could be near the Austen Riggs psychiatric centre, where she was being treated. At first I rented a studio on Main Street, above Sullivan's meat market, and replaced the window with a large picture window for good northern light. From there I watched the life of the town: the Red Lion Inn, the shops, the church and the people going about their business. In 1957 we bought a house on South Main Street, and I turned the old carriage barn behind it into what I called my best studio yet. My neighbours in Stockbridge became my models, from children to shopkeepers to the town doctor, and I paid them for sitting. In Stockbridge my work grew more serious. I painted The Problem We All Live With, of young Ruby Bridges walking to school, and other paintings about civil rights, poverty and space exploration for Look magazine. In 1967 I painted Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas, a portrait of the town I loved, with my old studio window lit above the market. Stockbridge recreates that scene each December, and the Norman Rockwell Museum, with my studio moved to its grounds, keeps alive the community that inspired me.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today