WARREN, Ohio – Norman Rockwell spent 64 years creating artwork for the Boy Scouts, completing more than 400 works, including paintings, calendars pages and magazine covers.
Dozens of those works, spanning six decades, are on display in Northeast Ohio, at a small museum in Warren.
But you better act fast: They are on view at the Medici Museum of Art only through Sunday, Sept. 1, and then will be removed the following week to be sold, as part of a bankruptcy settlement reached with the Boy Scouts of America over sexual abuse claims.
Heritage Auctions in Dallas announced this week that 25 pieces from the collection will be auctioned in November, with the rest sold in the next year or two. Per the bankruptcy settlement, proceeds will go to survivors of childhood sexual abuse while in scouting.
The collection has been valued at as much as $130 million, according to some estimates.
“We always knew this day would come,” said Medici Museum Director Katelyn Amendolara-Russo. “We were fortunate to have it all these years.”
The exhibit, at the museum since early 2020, features the largest collection of Rockwell’s Boy Scouts art ever displayed.
Among the works here:
* “Boy Scout Handbook Cover” from 1959, perhaps the iconic work, with a smiling scout, book in one hand, waving with the other.
* “Growth of a Leader,” from 1966, which featured a single scout, at four different ages and four different stages of scouting, Cub Scout to leader.
* “Beyond the Easel,” a 1969 work that features Rockwell himself, working on a painting of several scouts.
“It’s a nice creative insight into Norman Rockwell – and world history, if you’re not a Rockwell enthusiast,” said Amendolara-Russo.
From Texas to Northeast Ohio
The story of how the small museum in Northeast Ohio came to display the extraordinary exhibit is almost as interesting as the artwork itself.
Many of the paintings on display now at the Medici were created by Rockwell between 1925 and 1976 for annual Boy Scouts of America calendars produced in partnership with Brown & Bigelow, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based company that at one point in the mid-20th Century was one of the largest printers of calendars in the world.
For years, a selection of Rockwell’s original art, including the originals of many of the Boy Scout paintings, was displayed at the National Scouting Museum near Dallas. When that facility closed in 2017, all of the artwork, including the Rockwells, headed for storage.
Meanwhile, Warren attorney Ned Gold, a long-time volunteer with the Boy Scouts and a board member at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, came up with the idea to bring the works to Northeast Ohio.
After the Boy Scouts’ bankruptcy, however, the Butler decided to pass on the exhibit, fearful of the possible legal and financial implications of showing the works in the wake of the sexual abuse allegations, according to reports.
Meanwhile, the Butler’s Trumbull branch – which later split with the Butler over the controversy and became the Medici Museum – agreed to accept the works.
Amendolara-Russo said she was able to separate the art from the controversy.
“It’s been a wonderful asset for Trumbull County,” Amendolara-Russo said, adding, “It helped position us as a separate institution.”
The Rockwell works
Rockwell, who died in 1978 at age 84, had his first paid job with the Boy Scouts, as art director for Boy’s Life magazine.
He would go on to become the long-time illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post, and is among the best known and most beloved American artists, whose works often evoke a sense of sentimentalism and nostalgia.
Visitors to the Medici can track the evolution of Rockwell’s style, from early paintings which are darker in both color and tone than his later works.
His signature, too, evolves, from cursive to block printing.
The Boy Scout art is displayed not chronologically but around themes, including helping others, high adventure, returning from camp and the Boy Scout oath.
Several works display the successive steps of Rockwell’s artistic process, from charcoal drawing to oil sketch to oil on canvas.
Amendolara-Russo pointed out several hidden Easter eggs in some of the works here, including a photo incorporated into a painting and a scout’s leg missing from one work.
Rockwell’s own dogs were used as models in several paintings.
And when he lacked ideas, he turned to Michelangelo for inspiration, said Amendolara-Russo, pointing out the similarity between the scout’s pose in “Tomorrow’s Leader” and that of Michelangelo’s David.
Beyond the Rockwells
There is more to the Medici than the Rockwell art, to be sure.
The Boy Scouts collection also includes works by Joseph Csartari, who succeeded Rockwell as the organization’s official artist, Walt Disney and others.
In addition, there are several works by Carol Feuerman, whose (very) realistic sculptures will make you pause and wonder: Is she real?
There are also several works from the Renie and James Grohl Collection, including pieces by Calder and Matisse. (The late James Grohl is the father of Warren native and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Dave Grohl, founder of the Foo Fighters and former drummer for Nirvana.)
The museum completed a major expansion in 2021, growing to 14,000 square feet and 10 galleries. On display in the new section: Sequence, an exhibit of printmaking by an all-Ohio lineup of artists, at the museum through early October.
After the Rockwells leave, look for an exhibit from the collection of John Anderson, a museum board member who was instrumental in founding the museum.
In addition, the museum is working with the Trumbull County Historical Society on an upcoming exhibit of science-fiction movie sets and props by Warren native John Zarbrucky, who created works for “Blade Runner,” “Men in Black,” “Star Trek,” “Total Recall” and other films.
Still, it’s likely nothing will draw attention to the museum the way the Rockwells did.
As many as 2,500 visitors a month came to the museum during the exhibit’s first years here, according to Amendolara-Russo.
Among the visitors: Numerous older scouts, including some who were paid $25 decades ago to be models for Rockwell.
Younger scouts came in large numbers, too. To accommodate the smaller visitors, the works are hung 5 inches lower than in a typical gallery, she said.
“People from all over the world have visited,” said Amendolara-Russo.
You’ve still got time -- although the clock is ticking -- to count yourself among them.
If you go: Medici Museum of Art
Where: 9350 E. Market St., Warren, about 60 miles southeast of Cleveland
When: The museum is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday
How much: Admission is free
More information: medicimuseum.art
Related: Late summer luxury at the Grand Resort in Warren (yes, Warren)
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