'Right show for the right time': Norman Rockwell exhibit featured in Utica

Jun. 19—UTICA — Optimism, with a dose of social commentary, is on display at the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute with the facility's landmark exhibition, "Norman Rockwell."

"I think this is the right show for the right time," said Stephen G. Harrison, deputy director and chief curator at the MWPAI, 310 Genesee St.

Over the course of his six-decade career, Mr. Rockwell (1894-1978) illustrated the everyday moments in America, featuring diverse races, nationalities, economic backgrounds and creeds. Through two world wars, the Great Depression, the wars in Korea and Vietnam and the Civil Rights struggles, he promoted an optimistic world in the face of hardship and struggle.

His view of the world was partially influenced by his experiences in Northern New York and its people.

"He was an artist who tried to capture the American spirit, from all ages and all ethnicities and backgrounds and I love the opportunity to be able to show an artist who people think of in one way and leave realizing there was a lot more depth to the artist," Mr. Harrison said.

In 1916, Mr. Rockwell, a native of New York City and where he received his training, wed Watertown native and then-Potsdam resident Irene O'Connor. They were married for 14 years.

Miss O'Connor had moved with her family to St. Lawrence County as a girl and graduated from Norwood High School and Potsdam Normal School, the predecessor to SUNY Potsdam. She began her teaching career in New Rochelle, Westchester County, where she met Mr. Rockwell. They married the same year the Saturday Evening Post first published his work — two covers for $75 each. Mr. Rockwell called the magazine "the greatest show window in America." His first cover, "Boy With Baby Carriage," was for the May 20, 1916 issue. His second, published for the June 3 issue, was "Circus Barker and Strongman."

Mr. Rockwell's social life thrived in New Rochelle's artist community as his fame escalated in the 1920s. He needed an escape each year from the hustle and bustle of downstate. The three-room Louisville Landing cabin that Mrs. O'Connor's family had maintained since she was a girl provided renewal and inspiration. The hamlet where Mr. Rockwell spent his summers, Louisville Landing, was destroyed and submerged during the 1950s construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway. The couple also often visited Fishers Landing near Alexandria Bay.

A July, 1928 Watertown Daily Times article heralding Mr. Rockwell's return to the north country references Louisville scenes appearing in the Saturday Evening Post.

"Many of Mr. Rockwell's best-known illustrations have been painted at the summer home at Louisville Landing. Scenes near Louisville and farm house interiors have become familiar to readers of the Saturday Evening Post through Rockwell's drawings," the Times reported. "He has painted many pictures of homesteads in this section and one of the most appealing pictures is of an old stone house with its quaint and homely details ... the old Gibson homestead."

A November 2011 Saturday Evening Post article also reported on that connection. A Santa Claus image Mr. Rockwell painted for a Christmas 1927 issue of the magazine was based on Louisville resident John Malone. In Louisville, Mr. Rockwell "retrieved drinking water from stone wells, carried firewood and swam and fished in the river," the Post noted.

During his Louisville summers, Mr. Rockwell also rented an art studio with a skylight in Massena. The art studio was on North Main Street and owned by local photographer Fred Hopson, according to a 1927 Massena Observer article. Mr. Rockwell spent several weeks in it during the summer of 1926.

Mr. Rockwell's Louisville days ended when the couple divorced in 1930.

cover stories

Mr. Rockwell did 323 covers for the Saturday Evening Post, ending in December of 1963, the year he ended his 47-year association with the magazine, with a painting of John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated a month earlier. Included in the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute exhibit is all 323 covers.

"Luckily, the Norman Rockwell Museum (in Stockbridge, Mass.) has two full sets at stock, so they lent us one of the sets," Mr. Harrison said. "They came in five large crates."

In 1943, inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt's address to Congress, Mr. Rockwell painted the "Four Freedoms" paintings, representing Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, Freedom From Want and Freedom from Fear. They were reproduced in four consecutive issues of The Saturday Evening Post with essays by contemporary writers. The works, according to the Rockwell Museum, toured the United States in an exhibition that was jointly sponsored by the Post and the U.S. Treasury Department and through the sale of war bonds raised more than $130 million for the war effort.

Most people associate Mr. Rockwell with those Saturday Evening Post covers, Mr. Harrison said, but there was so much more to the artist.

"The Saturday Evening Post had a lot of editorial restrictions on what could be shown and depicted," Mr. Harrison said. As the civil rights movement became more and more prominent, Rockwell wanted to show African-Americans in normal situations, like white people. But they wouldn't allow that. They would only allow black people to be on the cover if they were in a servile roll. So, he left, famously, in 1963."

Mr. Rockwell began painting for Look magazine.

His painting in the Jan. 14, 1964 issue of "Look" magazine, "The Problem We All Live With," ushered in a new era, theme-wise, in his career. The image features a young African-American girl being escorted to school amidst signs of protest and fearful ignorance.

"He had a whole other career for Look magazine, in which he was able to express progressive ideas, like the war on poverty, refugees, the civil rights movement and all sorts of causes," Mr. Harrison said. "That's an aspect of his career that most people don't realize. Look didn't have the same circulation that Saturday Evening Post did. People don't necessarily know him for those works, but they are incredibly powerful. He was also very much enamored by the Peace Corps and depicted Americans hard at work trying to bring the ideas of American generosity to the rest of the world."

Life as he saw it

Time magazine once called Rockwell "probably the best-loved U.S. artist alive," while the New York Times compared his paintings to the novels of Mark Twain.

The artist once said, "The view of life I communicate in my pictures excludes the sordid and ugly. I paint life as I would like it to be."

"I think he painted an idealized version of America," Mr. Harrison said. "The Saturday Evening Post, and to a lesser degree, Rockwell himself, wanted to encourage optimism and hope. The Great Depression is a major element going on during his career."

His works, Mr. Harrison said, uplifted the human spirit.

"I think that was key to getting through those Depression years, and the same with the second World War when so many people lost loved ones. He was trying to bolster the American spirit."

Mr. Rockwell's creations, Mr. Harrison said, have "resonance" with an echo in today's world.

"His paintings are, in many ways, products of their time because he was painting for a commercial publication in a serialized manor, but they address issues that are still with us today," Mr. Harrison said. "Therefore, his paintings still have relevance for us today."

He hopes the exhibit will enable visitors to rediscover historical events of the 20th century and portrayals of key figures of the century, from politicians to coal miners.

"I hope our visitors will be able to find a certain hope and optimism in his works that we've put on view from his paintings," Mr. Harrison said.

The details

n WHAT: Exhibit on the art of Norman Rockwell.

n WHERE: The Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute, 310 W. Genesee St., Utica.

n WHEN: The exhibit opened June 11 and concludes Sept. 18.

n COST: Entry fee is $10 and free for MWPAI members. Admission is also free for active duty military members and their families and for children age 12 and under. The fee is $5 for full-time students.

n OF NOTE: The exhibit has been organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.

n MORE INFO: mwpai.org