BENTONVILLE — Famed American illustrator Norman Rockwell captured his subjects as they celebrated life’s everyday moments - their trials, triumphs, struggles for social justice and a raw human spirit.
Beginning in mid-March, members and guests to Crystal Bridges Museum ofAmerican Art will have access to some of Rockwell’s best-loved paintings in American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell, organized by theNorman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.
The exhibition will be showcased in four rooms in the museum with 50 of Rockwell’s original oil paintings, the 323 iconic covers of the Saturday Evening Post and a step-by-step look at how the artist developed one of his most politically charged and hard-hitting magazine illustrations, Murder in Mississippi (1965).
Officials anticipate that the exhibition, on tour since 2007, will be “enormously popular”and will draw thousands to Crystal Bridges who have not yet visited the museum, said Niki Stewart, director of education and exhibitions.
“We’re looking at havingsome of the biggest crowds we’ve ever had,” even larger than those who flocked to the museum in the weeks and months after it opened on Nov. 11, 2011, she said.
Beginning Monday, museum members can reserve exhibition tickets at no charge; nonmembers will have to wait until Feb. 4 to buy tickets.
Also, members will have the opportunity to view the collection from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. on March 8, and for two hours on the morning of March 9, the day the exhibit opens to the general public. Tickets are $12 for nonmembers.
Regular visitors to the museum are familiar with Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter (1943) displayed in museum space dedicated to the Modern period (roughly 1900 to 1960).Two other Rockwell pieces in Crystal Bridges’ collection will be on display for the first time - Sick Puppy (1923) and Her Hero (1941) when American Chronicles arrives. Those works will not be among the traveling exhibition, but visitors will be directed to the Modern era gallery where they will be on display.
A LONG TIME COMING
Stewart said talk about a Rockwell exhibit at Crystal Bridges began around 2009. The Bentonville museum is the second-to-last stop on a tour that has included museums and art centers inFlorida, North Carolina, California, Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, Kansas, Washington and Winnipeg, Canada. From Arkansas, it will go to the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville in November.
Though the exhibit changes slightly between locales, there is a core of works on display at every venue, such as the Rockwell’s original Triple Self-Portrait (1960), as well as Girl at Mirror, (1954) Art Critic (1955) and Going and Coming (1947).
“It stays pretty much the same checklist unless a work needs to come out for conservation reasons,” said Laurie Norton Moffatt, director of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.
That museum is home to the world’s largest collection of Rockwell originals. Moffatt has been with the museum 35 years and is considered a leading scholar on the artist’s work. She’s scheduled to give a lecture, “Rockwell Reflections,” in Crystal Bridges’ Great Hall on the afternoon of March 9.
She said she’ll focus on Rockwell’s life and his lasting place in the art world.
“Where illustration and art began to diverge in the minds of the critics, the sort of public consumption of the visual culture in the magazines continued on right through his lifetime, until his death in 1978,” Moffatt said. He was 84.
The exhibition will be ondisplay at Crystal Bridges through May 27, at which time it will return to Stockbridge. Moffatt said the collection returns “home” in the summer and fall, when attendance at the Norman Rockwell Museum is at its peak.
The 300-plus Saturday Evening Post covers, created by Rockwell over 47 years (1916-63) will line the walls in two of the four exhibition rooms at Crystal Bridges. Stewart said patrons who have seen the show in other venues have tended to comb the magazine covers for milestones in their lives, such the week they were born or the week their children left for college.
“A lot of people are looking as much at the images as they are at the date and remembering and sharing stories,” Stewart said. “It really becomes this moment where they can connect on a personal level with each other.”
The third component of the American Chronicles exhibit is a look at the detailed process Rockwell used in creating one particular painting, Murder in Mississippi, for Look magazine in 1965. Thepiece accompanied a story titled “Southern Justice” about the 1964 murders of three young civil-rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss.
Materials on display will include Rockwell’s handwritten research notes, posed photographs and preliminary sketches that he used to create the painting.
“This anatomy of how to make a painting will be something new for some folks to consider, all the details that go into creating something like that,” Stewart said. “Just this one part of the show - the Murder in Mississippi installation area - shows the kind of work ethic he had. It tells the level of detail and accuracy he was interested in maintaining.”‘THE PROBLEM WE ALL LIVE WITH’
One of the most important pieces in American Chronicles is Rockwell’s The Problem We All Live With, (1964) which depicts a 6-year-old black girl, Ruby Bridges, on her way into an all-white public school in New Orleans during the process of racial desegregation in 1960. In the painting, Ruby is escorted by four U.S. deputy marshals, their heads cropped off at the shoulders. A smashed tomato thrown at Ruby is visible on the wall behind her.
The painting is as relevant today as it was back then, Moffatt said.
Last year, she used a framed poster of The Problem We All Live With to initiate a dialogue about bullying and exclusion for a group of elementary schoolchildren she spoke to.
“I really think it was having the image there that helped unlock the conversation,” Moffatt said.
From the larger story of integrating the nation and racial relations, she moved the discussion to whether any of the kids had similar issues facing them today. It struck a chord with one particular student.
“This young boy started eagerly waving his hand,” wanting to tell his story, which he did, Moffatt said.
“At the end of our conversation, when the class ended, the teacher took me aside afterward and said ‘You wouldn’t have known this, but that boy did not speak in class all year and that is the first time he told his story.’
“I just nearly dissolved into tears,” Moffatt said. “I was so moved. It was not only poignant, but it really revealed the power of a visual image and Rockwell’s images in particular through their storytelling.”
As one component in a lineup of special programming to accompany the exhibition, officials have arranged a public discussion April 7 between a museum curator and Ruby Bridges, who is now in her mid-50s and a civil-rights activist and writer. She’s also expected to sign copies of her book, Through My Eyes. The ticketed lecture will be in Crystal Bridges’ Great Hall.
MORE FOR ROCKWELL LOVERS
On March 8, officials will show an Academy Awardwinning short film, Norman Rockwell’s World: An American Dream, featuring commentary from Rockwell, archival footage and re-enactments from his life, followed by an audience discussion.
Patrons may also attend afternoon classes in portrait drawing techniques March 11, 18 and 25, as well as art talks, a teen workshop and a special April 10 Wednesday Over Water (WOW) tasting, featuring Rockwell’s perspective on edible culture in the U.S.
“There are a lot of different Rockwell exhibitions out there in the world,” Stewart said. “This one became our favorite not because of what’s in the exhibition, but because of what else comes with the exhibition.”
Materials include a printed family guide and an audio guide produced by the Norman Rockwell Museum that provides one tour for the whole family and one just for children.
The speakers are all Rockwell’s family members.
The Crystal Bridges museum store is already stocked with a hardcover catalog for the American Chronicles exhibition.
The cost is $60. A paperback version will also be available, as well as many other Rockwell-related items.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 01/20/2013