Iconic Norman Rockwell painting re-created at Northbridge state police museum

NORTHBRIDGE — A painting of Ed Locke was produced by one of America’s most famous artists and become a staple in police barracks around the world, and if you ask him about it, he will say it was all because he was left-handed.

“I had a friend growing up that always reminded me that I was always picked because I was left-handed,” Locke said.

Locke was an 8-year-old student at the Plain School in Stockbridge in 1958, when Berkshire County’s most famous painter, Norman Rockwell, visited the school. Rockwell, who frequently used local subjects for his paintings, was in search of a child for his upcoming piece, which would end up being titled “The Runaway.”

“We were all sitting down in the classroom, and like all left-handed students, I was sitting on the end because I needed the extra space to reach over and write, as all the desks were designed for right-handed students,” Locke, now 74, said. “So I think being out on the end made me stand out compared to my classmates.”

Locke would end up sitting down for the photo that would then be turned into the portrait of the runaway. The portrait depicts Locke as a “runaway” child, who is sitting at a lunch counter alongside a Massachusetts state trooper, who is eying Locke in a friendly, knowing look while Locke looks on nervously.

“We had it shot at the Howard Johnson’s in Pittsfield. Rockwell was really nice and easy to work with, plus back then you didn’t really talk back to adults, so you just did whatever they said,” Locke said. “The next thing I knew, it was on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.”

Locke was in Northbridge on Saturday, signing copies of the photo for families, Rockwell fans and state police historians. Northbridge has been home to the Massachusetts State Police Museum and Learning Center since 2021, where it moved from the Grafton State Police barracks into a former town building at 1 Memorial Square in Whitinsville.

The portrait of Locke has become a staple for state police officers around the country, as the depiction, in typical Rockwellian fashion, shows a good-spirited, determined depiction of quintessential 20th-century American life. A former state trooper helped construct a recreation of the diner setting depicting in the portrait, which is located in the museum in Northbridge.

“To me, the painting is about history,” Stephen Byron, the museum’s president, said. “We have a logbook in the museum that contains the name of every state trooper in the history of the state. There are a lot of great, strong leaders in the there, and I think the painting showcases that side of the job.”

The police officer depicted in the portrait is state trooper Richard Clemens, who was a neighbor of Rockwell’s. Clemens’ daughter, Mary Clemens, was in attendance on Saturday at the event, and said that the painting does a great job representing the kind of person her father, who died in 2012, was.

“It’s an iconic image, and I don’t think Rockwell could have known that what he portrayed here with my dad, that was my dad,” Clemens said. “My father once ran into a burning building while he was off-duty because he believed there were children inside and suffered serious burns on his body. I think the portrait shows a small town, that the police are there to help people. My dad took a ribbing from his fellow troopers for having his book so far out of his pocket in the painting, that was not protocol.”

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Norman Rockwell’s ‘The Runaway’ cover re-created at Northbridge museum