Russian Schoolroom

Russian Schoolroom depicts a group of seated and attentive Soviet schoolchildren looking towards the viewer's left, presumably at a teacher outside the visual frame. A bust of Vladimir Lenin with strewn flowers is, however, partially visible there. The children wear red Young Pioneer neckerchiefs and a Russian slogan on the wall behind them exhorts them to "Study and Learn". One pupil on the right, however, looks away to the viewer's right, like a typical schoolkid losing focus and finding something more interesting to see outdoors.

External image
The Moscow school class photograph on which the painting is based.[1]

Russian Schoolroom was published in the October 3, 1967, edition of Look as part of a series of articles on life in the Soviet Union. Rockwell had visited School No. 29 in Moscow where he drew puppy sketches on a chalkboard.[2] Reference photos of the Moscow classroom with pupils, taken as a model for Rockwell's final painting, reveal that the inattentive pupil is actually paying close attention to the teacher, with eyes front.[1][3] It has been suggested that in changing this detail, Rockwell slightly subverted the image to make a subtle political point in favor of non-conformity.[1] Additional reference photos show Rockwell himself sitting in that student's seat, apparently demonstrating a distracted look, which the student then emulated.[4][5]

The painting was stolen during an exhibit at a small art gallery in Clayton, Missouri, in June 1973.[6] In 1988, it turned up and was sold at an auction in New Orleans for about $70,000. Steven Spielberg bought the painting from Judy Goffman Cutler, a noted art dealer who specialized in American illustrators, in 1989 for $200,000. A member of his staff spotted the painting on an FBI web listing of stolen works of art and the authorities were immediately notified.[7] By 2009, the painting was in the custody of the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.[8] The court decided in 2010 that the 1973 owner had been appropriately reimbursed and that the painting belonged to Cutler, who had by then traded it with Spielberg for another work; she subsequently added it to the collection on display at the National Museum of American Illustration, which she co-founded.[9]

• Garrison, Chad (June 6, 2007). "The Rockwell Files". The Riverfront Times. Steven Spielberg's stolen painting, a St. Louis art thief, and a plot to kill Martin Luther King. It could make a helluva movie.

• Detailed record of the painting via the Norman Rockwell Museum website
• School - A day in a Russian schools