Norman Rockwell Museum Stockbridge, MA October 17, 2020 – January 17, 2021 Read more...

Host or join a Gala roundtable with your friends and family, together with a special guest — one of the contemporary illustrators whose work is featured in the exhibition, and support the Museum we all love.

Join exhibition curators James J. Kimble and Stephanie Haboush Plunkett for a virtual conversation about Norman Rockwell: Imagining Freedom. Freedom as an aspirational idea and its realities through American history will be discussed through the art and artifacts on view.

Join three Imagining Freedom catalogue authors – outstanding scholars who will bring little known aspects of the Four Freedoms and Rockwell’s famed paintings into view. What did these stand for in their time? How did they shape perception and generate support for the war effort? Who were they speaking to and who was left out? What do they mean to us today?  Commentators include D.B. Dowd, Professor of Art and American Culture Studies, Washington University in St. Louis; James McCabe, Chief Collections Manager, Henry Ford Museum; and others.

Join political illustrator Victor Charles Juhasz and other combat artists who will discuss their experiences as imbedded illustrators across the branches of the armed forces and the power of art to tell personal stories. The history of artist’s working in the field, from the American Civil War to America’s more recent engagement in the Middle East, will be explored.

How can society meet the needs of all Americans for food sustainability, shelter, and global health? Join a conversation with noted scholars and artists to explore the history of need in our nation and new strategies that are being developed to meet the challenges.  Panelists to be announced.

Author and illustration and design historian Steven Heller will explore how graphic symbols through time endure and influence life—for good and evil—for generations. A nuanced examination of the most powerful symbol was examined in his recent book, The Swastika and Symbols of Hate. Steven Heller has written extensively on and design/illustration. For thirty-three years he was art director at The New York Times, originally on the OpEd Page and for many years with the New York Times Book Review. Currently, he is co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author Department and writes the Visuals column for the New York Times Book Review. He also writes The Daily Heller for Print magazine.

Throughout history, illustrators and cartoonists have responded to the world’s challenges and upheavals with brilliance and ferocity. Navigating the technical and distributive realities of their times, artists create potent visual symbols and narratives that establish new visual metaphors and repurpose old ones, sometimes borrowing conventions from other media.

Discuss the legacy of the Four Freedoms with illustrators, authors, and scholars who will share perspectives on historical and contemporary notions of freedom, and on the role of imagery to shape public perception, decision-making, and cultural narratives.

Franklin D. Roosevelt made clear that the Four Freedoms were “no vision of a distant millennium.” Their odyssey did not end with FDR, nor with Rockwell. Eleanor Roosevelt, who championed the late president’s legacy, ceaselessly touted the Four Freedoms as an appropriate summation of democracy and human rights. Enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Four Freedoms are a testament that arose from the ashes of war to affirm the precious nature of freedom everywhere in the world; these aspirational ideals have continued to play a prominent role in national and international thought.

Discuss the legacy of the Four Freedoms with illustrators, authors, and scholars who will share perspectives on historical and contemporary notions of freedom, and on the role of imagery to shape public perception, decision-making, and cultural narratives.

Conscience is the individual’s most sacred right. How do multiple belief systems benefit a pluralistic society and why should freedom of religion be a fundamental human right? Join religious leaders in a conversation about Freedom of Worship and its role in sustaining our democracy. Panelists to be announced.

Norman Rockwell Museum Stockbridge, MA October 17, 2020 – May 31, 2021 Read more...