Introduction

American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell explores the popularity and broad appeal of Norman Rockwell's imagery through six decades of his career. He honed his pictorial storytelling skills while creating illustrations for magazine articles, but his emotionally appealing paintings, often set in an idealized, early-twentieth century America, propelled him from the stable of Saturday Evening Post illustrators to become one of America's most beloved and recognized artists.

The exhibition's forty-four paintings include some of the artist's signature works: No Swimming, Christmas Homecoming, Triple Self-Portrait, and his depiction of school desegregation in the south, The Problem We All Live With. Also in the show are tear-sheets of all 323 of his Saturday Evening Post covers, which played a large part in popularizing Rockwell's work-images that both reflected and helped shape perceptions of a distinctive slice of American culture.