American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell

March 2, 2012 to May 27, 2012

Norman Rockwell, Triple Self-Portrait, 1959.

Under the honourary patronage of Canada’s Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Gary Doer and the support of the Embassy of the United States of America

For more visit rockwell.wag.ca

TO ACCOMMODATE OUR NORMAN ROCKWELL VISITORS, THE WAG HAS EXTENDED ITS HOURS.  THE GALLERY WILL BE OPEN FROM 10AM TO 10PM FROM THURSDAY, MAY 24 TO SUNDAY, MAY 27.

The Exhibition
For the first time ever an exhibition of the work of Norman Rockwell is coming to Canada—and it’s coming to the WAG! One of the most popular North American artists of the past century, Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was a keen observer of human nature and a gifted storyteller. For nearly seven decades, Rockwell chronicled our changing society in the small details and nuanced scenes of ordinary people in everyday life, providing a personalized interpretation—often an idealized one—of North American identity. His depictions offered a reassuring visual haven during a time of momentous transformation as North America evolved into a complex, modern society. In addition to 42 major paintings by the artist depicting good times and bad, quaint pastimes and charged current events, the exhibition includes archival material, photographs, and complete set of 323 tear sheets from The Saturday Evening Post. Rockwell’s contributions to our visual legacy, many of them now icons of North American culture, have found a permanent place in our psyche. Representing the exhibition’s only Canadian venue, the Winnipeg Art Gallery is partnering with the Norman Rockwell Museum, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to bring a major exhibition of this defining artist to Canada for the first time.

Media


• CBC Manitoba Scene, April 18, 2012: Norman Rockwell exhibit extended at the Winnipeg Art Gallery by popular demand
• ChirsD.ca, April 15, 2012: Norman Rockwell’s Son to Visit WAG Exhibit
• The National Post, March 5, 2012: Quintessential American artist Norman Rockwell makes 1st and only Canadian stop
• The Globe and Mail, March 3, 2012: A feel-good master’s complex message
• CBC Manitoba Scene, March 2, 2012: Re-examining Norman Rockwell at the Winnipeg Art Gallery
• CBC Information Radio, March 1, 2012: Norman Rockwell Exhibit At The Winnipeg Art Gallery
• Winnipeg Free Press, March 1, 2012: Thank you, Mr. Rockwell
• Winnipeg Free Press, March 1, 2012:  Rockwell retrospective celebrates painter who captured idyllic side of American life
• Metro Winnipeg, February 29, 2012: WAG chronicles Rockwell
• CJOB 68, February 29, 2012: Rockwell on display at the WAG  
• Media Release of February 29, 2012: Norman Rockwell Blockbuster Exhibition Opens at WAG Friday
• Media Release of January 26, 2012: WAG Presents First Retrospective Exhibition in Canada of Beloved American Artist Norman Rockwell
• Media Release of January 24, 2012: The American Spirit: Norman Rockwell's Artworks Continue National Tour

Norman Rockwell
Norman Rockwell found success early, being commissioned to design four Christmas cards before his sixteenth birthday. In 1916 the 22-year-old painted his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post, the magazine he considered to be “the greatest show window in America.” Over the next 47 years, Rockwell’s art appeared on the cover of The Post 323 times. Although often seen as a painter of idealized North American family life, Rockwell also chronicled the darker side. His Four Freedoms paintings, inspired by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s address to Congress in 1943, toured the United States in an exhibition sponsored by The Saturday Evening Post and the U.S. Treasury Department and, through the sale of war bonds, raised more than $130 million for the war effort. Murder in Mississippi is a haunting depiction of the murder of civil rights workers in 1965. The Problem We All Live With dealt with the issue of school racial integration, depicting a young African American girl, Ruby Bridges, flanked by white federal marshals, walking to school past a wall defaced by racist graffiti.

Admission: Member $6 • Family with membership $15 •Adult $18 • Senior/Student $16 • Family (up to 2 adults and 4 children under 18) $40 • Senior/Student $16 • Children (5 and under) Free

Audio Tour included with Admission: produced through the Norman Rockwell Museum, the audio tour is narrated by Rockwell’s youngest son Peter, and it explores the importance of his work to American art, history and culture.

You can literally be part of this historic exhibition by adopting a Rockwell painting or Saturday Evening Post tear-sheet cover! Click HERE for details.

American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell is organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Masterpieces Program.

Audio Tours have been made possible by a generous gift from The Mauro Family Foundation Inc. Publication support has been provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Media Sponsorship has been provided by the Curtis Publishing Company and by the Norman Rockwell. Estate Licensing Company. Conservation support provided by the Stockman Family Foundation. 

Presented by

Norman Rockwell, The Problem We All Live With, 1963.