Summer 2009 An American institution: Reflections on turning 40, by Laurie Norton Moffatt
From the very first day I set foot in the Old Corner House in 1977, I knew there was something special about the organization that was to become Norman Rockwell Museum. We did not call ourselves Norman Rockwell Museum then, but it was already apparent that that was how our visitors thought of us and spoke of us, and why they flocked to us.
Stories in pictures: Norman Rockwell and the art of illustration, by Stephanie Haboush Plunkett
Like most creators of art for commerce, Norman Rockwell worked within the realm of both aesthetics and technology. An astute visual storyteller and a masterful painter with a distinct, personal message to convey, Rockwell constructed fictional realities that offered a compelling picture of the life to which many 20thcentury Americans aspired.“The best of America,” At home in Stockbridge, by Linda Szekely Pero
In 1953, Norman Rockwell and his wife Mary relocated from Arlington, Vermont, to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The small town of 2,100 people provided new faces and new inspirations for such pictures as Family Tree, which traced the lineage of the “all-American boy” from a sixteenth century pirate and his Spanish princess captured on the Caribbean Sea.A time for transition: Norman Rockwell and the 1960s, by Corry Kanzenberg
For Norman Rockwell, 1960 marked the beginning of a decade of change. In August of the previous year, Mary Barstow Rockwell, his wife of 28 years and the mother of his children, unexpectedly passed away after a long struggle with depression. Over the next few years, tensions would arise between Rockwell and The Saturday Evening Post, ultimately ending his production of original work for the magazine. And in a seemingly improbable shift, complex subjects of topical significance became the focus of many Rockwell artworks.Living legacy A personal tribute to the Rockwell family, by Laurie Norton Moffatt
Norman Rockwell’s generosity of spirit was legendary. It was evident in his devotion to his public, his everyday kindnesses, and his quiet philanthropy. He had a penchant for giving away his artwork to the many admirers who visited his studio, as the personal inscriptions on hundreds of studies, drawings, and final canvases attest.