American Chronicles:
The Art of Norman Rockwell

Organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum, this national traveling exhibition of original art from the Museum’s noted collections returns to Stockbridge for the summer of our 40th anniversary year. The exhibition chronicles Rockwell’s life and art, introducing new scholarship rooted in decades of study by Curator of Norman Rockwell Collections, Linda Pero. The artist’s paintings, drawings, and studies span 56 years, from his 1914 interpretation of American folk hero Daniel Boone securing safe passage for settlers to the American West, to his 1970 report on American tourists and armed Israeli soldiers witnessing a Christmas Eve ceremony at the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem. We invite viewers to compare their own 20th-century American experience with the events portrayed by Rockwell, and to consider how much Rockwell’s vision may have influenced theirs.

A Day in the Life: Norman
Rockwell’s Stockbridge Studio

During his career, Norman Rockwell occupied approximately seventeen studios and borrowed at least six while away from home. All were arranged in a similar manner. Unlike the stereotypical disheveled artist’s studio, Rockwell’s were always neat and organized. His creativity and prolific production seemed to depend on a physical environment of tidy organization.

In celebration of the Norman Rockwell Museum’s 40th anniversary, this refreshed installation of the workspace that Rockwell considered his “best studio yet” invites viewers to enter into a day in his profoundly busy work life, and to ponder the aesthetic and practical concerns that informed the artist’s imagery and experience.

The Stockbridge Models Project:
A Norman Rockwell Museum Historic Preservation Project

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.

 

The Art of Norman Rockwell:
Highlights from the Collection

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; Girl at Mirror (1954), a poignant coming of age narrative; and Triple Self-Portrait (1960), his witty personal reflection, are among the Museum’s extensive holdings. In addition, rarely seen works from public and private collections are always on view.

Norman Rockwell's 323
Saturday Evening Post Covers

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.