Norman Rockwell - Hand written letter with stamped postmarked envelope: "This should help you with the difficult Mr. Buckley", 1965

Norman Rockwell - Hand written letter with stamped postmarked envelope: "This should help you with the difficult Mr. Buckley", 1965

Hand written and hand signed letter on artist's personalized stationery with the accompanying stamped and postmarked envelope.

Unique. Vintage handwritten, hand signed double-sided letter by Norman Rockwell to his printer at Color Lithographers discussing various matters concerning his prints and editions. This letter was written on the artist's personalized stationery with the accompanying postmarked envelope. True collectors' item. Historic.
This letter has been elegantly floated with pocket corners to reveal all four corners, in a museum quality wood frame under double-sided UV plexiglass to reveal both the fronts, as well as the backs of the letter and the original envelope. 
Measurements:
Frame:
 17 inches (vertical) by 10.5 inches (horizontal) by 1 inch 
Letter:
8 inches (vertical) by 6 inches (horizontal) 
Envelope:
4.25 inches (vertical) by 6 inches (horizontal) 

This letter was addressed to Shirlee Scoma (Shirlee Neinskin Scoma - 1917-2007)) whose husband ran Color Lithographers at 225  Varick Street, now known as Hudson Square, Lower Manhattan, which was the famous printing district of the 1960s. It reads as follows:

Dear Shirlee,

I called Ken Stuart, former art editor of the Post, asking him my understanding of the agreement, that all covers could be made into art prints. He agreed and told me to look up the right type of agreement that I got for all my work with the Post. I found a number of them, and herewith is one. 

The section called “Important” spells out the conditions. 

This should help you with the difficult Mr. Buckley. 

Mr. Lindsay was here today and is seeing you tomorrow. I think he is sold to have you make the prints. 

Sincerely, 

Norman

THE CHARACTERS MENTIONED IN THE LETTER
“The difficult Mr. Buckley” was Jim Buckley, the production and technical manager overseeing the lithographic plates at Color Lithographers. In commercial lithography during the 1960s, transferring an original oil painting into multi-color lithographic plates was an incredibly grueling process. Pressmen had to balance ink densities, dot gain, and color separations by hand to get a true match. Norman Rockwell also wanted to assure the printing company before they embarked on this arduous process, that, per his agreement with the Saturday Evening Post, all of their covers could be made into fine art prints - under the conditions described in more detail below. 

The "Mr. Lindsay" mentioned in the letter was Donald P. "Don" Lindsay, a prominent bank executive, arts patron, and civic leader from Spokane, Washington In 1963, Don Lindsay—then the CEO of Lincoln First Federal Savings and Loan—wrote directly to Norman Rockwell asking him to create a signature, life-sized painting of a young Abraham Lincoln for the lobby of the bank's brand-new downtown headquarters. Rockwell, who loved painting Lincoln, agreed to the $4,000 commission. Rockwell completed the monumental painting, titled Lincoln the Railsplitter (also known as Young Lincoln), in 1965. Standing over seven feet tall, it became the largest canvas Rockwell ever painted
Because the bank wanted to use the image heavily for promotional calendars, prints, logos, and advertisements, high-quality color reproduction was mandatory.
When Rockwell notes that "Mr. Lindsay was here today... I think he is sold to have you make the prints," it means Lindsay had traveled out east to visit Rockwell at his home and studio in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. During that visit, they reviewed the final artwork, and Lindsay gave his enthusiastic approval to hire the team at Color Lithographers to handle the critical, high-end print run. 
Today, the original oil painting Lindsay commissioned is a famous multi-million dollar piece housed at the Butler Institute of American Art

ADDITIONAL CONTEXT/BACKGROUND
At the time Norman Rockwell wrote this letter on May 22, 1965,he did not own the copyrights or reproduction rights to his Saturday Evening Post covers. Those rights belonged strictly to the Curtis Publishing Company, the publisher of the magazine, so he was not printing these lithographs independently. 
Curtis Publishing fiercely protected its intellectual property. Any fine-art lithographs or prints produced during this time had to be authorized, commissioned, or legally cleared by Curtis Publishing.
The project Rockwell was collaborating on with Color Lithographers was a Curtis-sanctioned reproduction print run. Rockwell was brought into the process purely to supervise the artistic quality and sign off on the color proofs, ensuring the prints matched his original oil paintings
The widespread market for the hand-signed, limited-edition Norman Rockwell lithographs that collectors buy today came primarily later, in the 1970s. 
By the late 1960s, Curtis Publishing fell into severe financial distress, eventually causing The Saturday Evening Post to temporarily fold as a weekly magazine in 1969. To monetize their massive archive, the resurrected Curtis Publishing created an aggressive commercial division, Curtis Licensing. They began heavily licensing Rockwell’s cover art to art publishers and brokers (such as Circle Gallery) to produce high-end, limited-edition lithographs. Rockwell was paid to hand-sign these limited-edition print runs. (It wasn’t until after Rockwell’s death in 1978 that his sons established the Norman Rockwell Estate Licensing Company to control his name, likeness, and personal art collection. Today, modern commercial prints require co-authorization from both the Rockwell Estate and Curtis Licensing.)