Elizabeth
Goldberg, Senior International Specialist of American Art and Deputy
Chairwoman, Americas, said, “We are honored to introduce Norman
Rockwell’s paintings to Phillips’ auctions by including this masterwork
in our November Evening Sale. While Rockwell has traditionally been
offered in sales of American Art, we are eager to break down the
barriers that separate these collecting categories and reexamine the way
that these different voices of the 20th century are classified. Before the Shot is
one of the most recognizable paintings by one of America’s most iconic
artists. This November, Rockwell’s name will be rightfully positioned
alongside other international 20th and 21st century masters, including
Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Joan Mitchell, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.”
One of Rockwell’s most well-known paintings, Before the Shot is
a nostalgic and humorous reflection of American culture in the 1950s,
elevating the commonplace to the remarkable. Nearly identical to the
version gracing the cover of the March 15, 1958, issue of The Saturday Evening Post,
the picture depicts a child standing on a wooden chair in a doctor’s
office, awaiting an impending shot and uneasily inspecting the diplomas
on the wall as the physician prepares a syringe.
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While Before the Shot
betrays a sense of chance encounter, it was actually a picture of much
consideration for Rockwell. Typical of his working process for his most
important paintings, Rockwell painted Before the Shot from a
series of photographs that he directed as scrupulously as one would a
film shoot. The source images were taken inside Dr. Donald Campbell’s
office in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Rockwell’s home from 1953 until
his death in 1978. Dr. Campbell, Rockwell’s own physician, served as the
model for the doctor, and eight-year-old Eddie Locke, who Rockwell
selected from the lunchroom at Stockbridge Plain Elementary School,
posed as the patient. Locke would later model for Rockwell’s popular
painting The Runaway. The artist’s practice of selecting his
neighbors, instead of professional models, to pose for his paintings
lends his work an authentic sense of Americana and pays homage to the
everyday middle-class existence in post-war America.
The
doctor-patient relationship is one that Rockwell knew intimately; in
addition to his wife’s and his own medical treatments, Rockwell had
three young boys at the time, who no doubt provided him with much
opportunity to study children apprehensively interacting with doctors.
Rockwell gave the completed work to Dr. Campbell, who later sold it to
another family, in whose collection it has remained ever since. For the
past thirteen years, the work was generously on loan to the Norman
Rockwell Museum, where it was enjoyed by countless visitors. The
painting’s power lies in its amusing relatability; as Rockwell has
acknowledged, "I guess everyone has sat in the doctor's office and
examined his diplomas, wondering how good a doctor he was...” It is this
communal experience that makes Before the Shot a hallmark image of American culture, as relevant today as it was in 1958.
