It is with great sadness that we share with you the passing of Norman Rockwell’s youngest son, renowned artist and our beloved friend, Peter Barstow Rockwell, on the evening of Thursday, February 6. Peter was surrounded by members of his family, his whimsical clay monsters and sketchbook, wearing his favorite shirt painted by his son, John. A memorial gathering will be held at St. Paul’s Church in Rome in May.

Peter Barstow Rockwell (1936 – 2020)

A marvelous and imaginative sculptor, whose work alights the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, St. Paul’s Church in Rome, a convent in Chioggia, Italy, a Bell Tower in Rindge, NH, sculpture installations at his alma mater, Haverford College, numerous public park installations, and resides in the collection of Norman Rockwell Museum. Peter is known for his playful monsters, soaring acrobats, climbing sculptures, humorous terra cottas, bronze work, and his deeply spiritual religious iconography.

Peter was born in New Rochelle, NY, in September 1936, as the third son of Norman Rockwell and Mary Barstow Rockwell. The family moved to Vermont in 1939 where his father sought the quieter life of the country to paint his portrayals of American life. Peter grew up playing in the fields and mountains of Vermont, attended high school at The Putney School in Putney, VT, and met his future wife, Cynthia (Cinny) Ide, whom he married at the Chapel at Connecticut College in New London, CT, in 1958.

Peter was to follow in his famous father’s footsteps and established a successful creative career as an artist, author, and academic. He studied art and sculpted at Haverford College, where he nearly lost his life to a fencing accident that punctured his heart lining and took months to heal. During college, he and his brother, author Thomas Rockwell, opened the Stockbridge Book Store, Rockwell Brothers: Books and Prints.

Intent on studying the techniques and materials of the masterful Italian Renaissance sculptors, he and Cinny left for Italy immediately after college, where they traveled to marble quarries and bronze foundries, studying the great flourishing of western sculpture. They took up residence in Rome where they raised their four children, Geoffrey, Tom, and twins Mary and John. Peter found a cozy studio space around the block from their home on Villa Pamphili, where he could walk to work, visit his favorite café for an espresso, and chat in fluent Italian with the proprietors.

Cinny led a life equally devoted to art and translated art history abstracts for the International Art History Research Institute where she worked for many years. Cinny also served on the board of Norman Rockwell Museum, followed by their son Tom. She and Peter were enthusiastic about the evolution of the Museum’s mission to place Norman Rockwell in the context of American illustration art and were great champions of the Museum’s work. Cinny passed away in 2013; Peter later moved back to the US, to be closer to family, settling and continuing his work in Beverly, MA.

As an expert on sculpting techniques, Peter authored several books on stone carving in Italy and India, now rare and hard to find:  The Art of Stoneworking, The Unfinished: Stone Carvers at Work on the Indian Subcontinent, and The Compleat Marble Sleuth.

Peter made immeasurable contributions to Norman Rockwell Museum, including scholarship, programs, and his sculptures on the Museum grounds and in the permanent collection. He authored Some Comments from the Boy in a Dining Car, an essay for the Museum’s first major traveling exhibition of his father’s work, Pictures for the American People. He vigorously contended that Rockwell’s art is for all people, not just Americans–they were even known behind courtyard walls in Pakistan where Peter researched his sculpture book on the unfinished monuments of India. His resonant, reassuring voice narrates the popular orientation video which plays continuously at Norman Rockwell Museum and initially accompanied the Pictures for the American People exhibition. He also gave generously of his time to speak nationally and abroad about his father’s work. Numerous videos and interviews with Peter can be found on the Museum’s YouTube channel.

The largest collection of Peter’s sculpture and art is in the permanent collection of Norman Rockwell Museum; a legacy for current and future generations to enjoy.  His climbing acrobats, massive stone carving named Grendel, (created in situ the fall of 1994 with several carving apprentices), and a cherished collection of sculptures he had given to his father, and grace the Museum grounds, in front of his father’s studio, and along the walking paths.

A comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s work and career, The Fantastical Faces of Peter Rockwell: A Sculptor’s Retrospective, was organized by Norman Rockwell Museum in 2009, curated by Stephanie Plunkett; first installed in Stockbridge, MA, it traveled to the Butler Museum in Youngstown, OH. View the exhibition catalog.

In 2014, the Museum brought its major Norman Rockwell exhibition, American Chronicles, to the Fondazione Roma-Arte-Musei Rome, in Rome Italy, where Peter warmly welcomed NRM trustees, patrons, staff, officials, and also provided fantastic tours with local insight, for many of the travelers. Peter and his son Tom were the sought-after spokespersons for members of the press, as this was the first-ever international presentation of such an extensive collection of his father’s work.

We will miss Peter and his ebullient creative force. We are grateful for his lifelong involvement with the Museum. Just last summer he delighted a crowd of visitors with a tour of his sculptures on the Museum grounds. The family plans a memorial in Rome, Italy, in May.

Norman Rockwell Museum

Stockbridge
10 February 2020

Read the obituary on BerkshireEagle.com

Read the Official Obituary

Read the Biographical Obituary

Image Credits:

Taken on Peter Rockwell’s 70th birthday. The shirt Peter is wearing in the picture was painted by his son, John.
Taken September 16^th ,2006
Photographer unknown

Reference photo for The Connoisseur, 1962
Photographer Lamone, Louie
©(1962) Norman Rockwell Family Agency
Norman Rockwell Museum Collection
ST1976.9565

Boy in the Dining Car, by Norman Rockwell
©SEPS 1946

Boy Playing with a Dolphin, 1963- 1966
Rockwell, Peter Barstow (b. 1936- d.2020)
Bardiglio Nuvolto Marble
Norman Rockwell Museum Collection
NRM.1985.07