Norman Rockwell’s friends and family posed for the pictures he based his paintings on

Arguably the greatest painter of mid-20th century American life — Norman Rockwell — used photographs as a visual guide for most of his pieces. While he employed professional models for some of his staged photos, more often the artist relied on friends and family to pose for the photos he would turn into iconic paintings…

Over the course of Rockwell’s career, he amassed over 4,000 paintings using over 20,000 reference photographs. The Norman Rockwell Museum has released much of the artist’s work as a traveling exhibit and a book called “Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera.”

These are just a few selections from that fantastic book…

(via Beautiful/Decay)