History
John Daniel Norwood was born in Durham, NC and moved to Norfolk, VA when he was 5. He attended The College of William & Mary (now Old Dominion University) for two years and then received the Out of State Fellowship from Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to study art in 1957. He used this fellowship to attend the Art Institute of Chicago for two years but felt he knew everything and decided to drop out of school. He worked doing architectural renderings for two years. Then moved on to Richard Rush Studios and after two years was running a shop of 20 people; painters, sculptors, mold makers and model makers. After saving money in order to spend six months in Europe, he left in January 1962. He had a bad accident on February 7, 1962 and spent 7 months in a hospital in Montefiascone, Italy. The Italians were very good to him as he was recovering. In November 1963, John remembers: