Playboy's Roving Eye

July, 1983

Norman Rockwell's Nude Painting is UnveiledMost of Middle America probably believes that the only naked subject Norman Rockwell ever painted was a Thanksgiving turkey. After all, did The Saturday Evening Post run nudes on its cover? The painting at left, an original oil on canvas titled The Manapessa, refutes that notion. The model, Jackie Wells, posed for Rockwell in August 1958, while she was a figure model for sculpture classes—which Rockwell regularly attended—in Lenox, Massachusetts, and Ro...