The man behind the paintings

I don't normally associate a magazine like Vanity Fair with doing an in-depth piece on figure such as Norman Rockwell, but the current issue of the magazine has just that.

"Norman Rockwell's American Dream," written by David Kamp, explores the life of the iconic painter from his less-than-picturesque childhood in New York City to his third marriage to a school teacher. It's definitely worth the time to read it.

The article also contains photographs taken from a new book by Ron Schick, "Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera." The photos were all posed shots that Rockwell would essentially copy onto the canvas. Several of the photos and paintings used in the article were the ones analyzed in class, including "Girl at Mirror" (1954) and "The Problem We All Live With" (1964).

Furthermore, the Norman Rockwell Museum, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, will debut "ProjectNORMAN" on its Web site next month, giving viewers access to more than 18,000 photos that Schick went through to compose the book.