Norman Rockwell Museum

July 3 through October 31, 2010

Though Norman Rockwell is often identified with home town life in New England, he was a frequent visitor to California, and was called upon by Hollywood to create imagery for posters advertising entertaining feature films of his day.

This installation exploring Rockwell’s art for the movies features original paintings, vintage posters, lobby cards, and original portraits of movie stars drawn form the Museum’s Art and Archival Collections and private collections of Rockwell’s art. The Magnificent Ambersons (1941), The Song of Bernadette (1943), Along Came Jones (1945), The Razor’s Edge (1946), Cinderfella (1960) and the 1966 remake of the classic, Stagecoach, are among the films the artist branded with his signature style of realism and narration.

Continue Reading

 

May 29 through November 27, 2010

“My experience on Boys’ Life helped me build some confidence in myself at a time when I needed courage, needed to believe in myself.”

—Norman Rockwell

2010 is the 100th anniversary year for the Boy Scouts of America. When the organization was still in its infancy, Norman Rockwell became one of their key illustrators, an important early achievement for the young man fresh out of art school. His first assignment for the Boy Scouts was to create pen and ink drawings for their Hike Book in the fall of 1912. Shortly after, at the age of nineteen, Rockwell was appointed art editor of Boys’ Life magazine, a post that required him to create imagery for the publication and supervise work delegated to other artists.

As his style matured and the Rockwell name became known, he was hired by outside publishers to compose illustrations for children’s books and periodicals. When his tenure began with The Saturday Evening Post in 1916, Rockwell left the salaried position at Boys’ Life, but continued to include Scouts in Post cover images and the monthly magazine of the American Red Cross. He resumed work with the Boy Scouts in 1924 with the production of his first of fifty-one annual images for Brown and Bigelow’s highly successful Boy Scout calendar. His connection to the group spanned sixty-four years, marking the longest professional association of his career.

Drawing upon the Norman Rockwell Museum’s archival collections, this installation offers a glimpse into the artist’s body of work for the Boy Scouts of America.

Continue Reading

Currently on view

For nearly fifty years, millions of Americans brought Norman Rockwell’s art into their homes, enjoying the artist’s Saturday Evening Post covers while seated in their favorite chairs, surrounded by their belongings in the company of their families. This intimate connection with Rockwell’s art made his images a part of the fabric of American lives. This comprehensive exhibition of original Saturday Evening Post cover tear sheets features each of Norman Rockwell’s illustrations for the publication, created between 1916 and 1963.

Continue Reading

 June 12 through October 31, 2010

Brilliant drawings for The New Yorker, beloved illustrated picturebooks, and the artistry of Jeanne Steig

Named the “King of Cartoons” by Newsweek, William Steig is renowned for his uproarious comic art and his best-selling illustrated children’s books and novels. During his lifetime, he kept America laughing with more than sixteen hundred drawings and one hundred seventeen covers for The New Yorker, and authored and illustrated more than twenty children’s picturebooks, including much-loved, mischievous tales like Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, which earned the artist a Caldecott Medal; the ever popular Dr. De Soto and Rotten Island; and Shrek, which has inspired feature length animated films. William Steig’s original cartoons and beloved book illustrations will be on view in this exciting installation that honors the genius of an American master. Engaging 3-D works by Jeanne Steig, the artist’s wife and creative collaborator, will be also on view.

View exhibition commercial

Original Shrek and Alpha Beta Chowder illustrations generously loaned by The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts. Click here to learn more about The Eric Carle Museum.

Continue Reading

The largest and most significant public collection of original works by celebrated twentieth century illustrator, Norman Rockwell, the Norman Rockwell Museum exhibits a comprehensive array of paintings, drawings, studies, photographs, and artifacts that reflect the evolution of the artist’s life and career. Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings (1943), iconic images inspired by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Address; The Marriage License (1955), a witty narrative inspired by an important rite of passage; and The Runaway (1958), a poignant reflection on childhood are among the Museum’s extensive holdings. In addition, rarely seen works from public and private collections are always on view.

Continue Reading

Stockbridge Town Hall

Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Currently on view

“Your models can make or break your work.”  -Norman Rockwell

In the fall of 1953, Norman Rockwell and his wife Mary moved from Arlington, Vermont to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the quintessential New England town which was home to the artist for his last twenty-five years. Rockwell, who then hired local people to model for the subjects of his illustrations, wasted no time employing residents of Stockbridge and the neighboring communities to pose for him. “After a while,” he said, “I knew everybody in town.”

Increasingly besieged by deadlines, Norman Rockwell began to use photographs as his primary references in the 1930s. He directed models on how to pose in his studio, and hired photographers to capture the likenesses that would ultimately inform his work. Together with his art, Rockwell’s reference photography inadvertently established an intimate and lasting record of the people of Stockbridge, who were an integral part of the artist’s most memorable images. Rockwell once noted, “I couldn’t ask for better models than my neighbors . . . I couldn’t do it without them.”

The preservation of this important legacy is made possible by The Stockbridge Models Project, a Norman Rockwell Museum initiative which has helped make the digitization and study of Rockwell’s Stockbridge photographic references possible. We are grateful for Town of Stockbridge support in this endeavor, which ensures the accessibility of these significant materials.

Continue Reading