MENU
SEARCHRichard Clemens was a 29-year-old trooper when Rockwell asked him to pose for the painting. Rockwell showed him leaning down toward the boy with a red knapsack on the floor behind him.
Photo: Wikimedia
The Massachussets trooper depicted sitting at a diner with a young boy in Norman Rockwell's iconic painting, "The Runaway," died on Sunday at 83.
Richard Clemens was a 29-year-old trooper when Rockwell asked him to pose for the painting, reports the Boston Globe . Rockwell showed him leaning down toward the boy with a red knapsack on the floor behind him.
"I don't think Rockwell could have chosen a more appropriate model,’" said Mary Blaauboer. "It's a symbol of police officers and how they help people. But it symbolized my father as a person, too. It showed his heart, and his whole life."
