Norman Rockwell: hometown hero

The exhibition "Hometown Hero, Citizen of the World: Rockwell in Stockbridge" represents a rich selection of the artist's finest work at the culmination of his career and includes fascinating ephemera from the last 25 years of his life in Massachusetts. It is the final exhibit in a trilogy about Norman Rockwell's life, art, and the communities in which he lived. New Rochelle, N.Y., and Arlington, Vt., comprised the first two installments.

Containing more than 60 original artworks, the exhibition is divided into five parts: "Rockwell and The Post. 1953 to 1963," "Space, Race, and Society," "Our Town," "Beyond the Studio," including travels sketches from trips Rockwell took to india and Russia, and "Anatomy of Murder in Mississippi."

Rockwell was born in 1894 in New York City but spent the first 27 years of his professional life in New Rochelle. In 1939, he moved his family to Arlington, intending to make it his permanent home. In 1953, however, Rockwell and his wife Mary relocated 60 miles south to the town of Stockbridge, in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, where he lived until his death in 1978. In Stockbridge, Rockwell produced 38 Saturday Evening Post covers from 1953 to 1963, then turned his talents toward illustrations that dealt with American social issues and other topics that interested him, such as space travel. During this time, he tackled subject matter that was weighty and controversial, including racial discrimination, poverty, desegregation, and the Vietnam War for such publications as Look magazine. As he grew older, Rockwell's painting became more introspective and self-revealing.

"I grapple with the whole concept of how much choice there was on Rockwell's part in choosing his subject matter during his career," says exhibition curator Linda Szekely Pero. "He was given an entirely new forum at Look that enabled him to tap a different part of his personality. He even pitched story ideas to Look. So much happened during this turbulent time, and Rockwell's concern for world peace was paramount."

In Stockbridge, Rockwell was not as sequestered as he was in Arlington. The town, a half-day's drive from New York or Boston, was filled with second-home owners who enjoyed the area's rich cultural offerings. Rockwell embraced his new community and made his neighbors famous, if only in their own town, on his Post covers and Boy Scout calendars. "I just love Stockbridge," he said. "I mean, Stockbridge is the best of America, the best of New England." From his small studio overlooking Main Street, he viewed passers-by on their daily errands. With a population of 2,100, the venue provided new faces and fresh inspiration.

In the summer of 1959, however, Mary, his wife of 29 years, died suddenly of cardiac arrest. The following summer Rockwell joined a local sketch class--good therapy for a man descending into depression. That winter, mustering his spirits, he painted "Triple Self-Portrait" for the February 13, 1960 cover of The Post--the first of eight issues to carry a serialized version of his autobiography.

"University Club" and "Window Washer," both painted in 1960, were typical of Rockwell's many "youth and old age" theme pictures, contrasting the active energy of youth with the stolid respectability of age.

"Hometown Hero, Citizen of the World: Rockwell in Stockbridge" is on view through Oct. 31 at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge.

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