Rockwell in Vermont

by Dave Conlin Read

Freedom: Norman Rockwell's Vermont Years, is the second of a three-part series of exhibitions that put Rockwell's career into a chronological/geographical perspective, following last year's look at his early years in New Rochelle and setting the stage for next year's focus on Rockwell in Stockbridge.

On view at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge through October 19, 2003, this exhibition is about Rockwell's years in Arlington, Vermont, from 1939 to 1953, and features both the paintings most beloved by the public and those considered by aficionados to be his best work.

The move from the fancy exurbia of New Rochelle, which earlier in the century was the capital of the thriving illustration industry, to the villiage of Arlington, most noted for world-class fishing on the Battenkill river, brought about the maturation of Rockwell as an artist.

"Arlington is where Rockwell found his style and voice as maker of American icons. Rural life gave him the clarity to see both the heroic and humble in human nature." said NRM director Laurie Norton Moffatt who welcomed the press on June 12 and introduced the exhibition's curators, Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, who's remarks put it into a chronological perspective and Linda Pero, who narrated a tour of the exhibition's 54 works, organized into four galleries.

Thirty-seven of them are on loan, including Breaking Home Ties, which hasn't been displayed publicly for nearly forty years. Also shown is Christmas Homecoming, which not only depicts his sons and wife , but also fellow Arlington artist Mead Schaeffer and nearby-neighbor Grandma Moses, each of whom is represented in the exhibition by works of their own.

Besides Schaeffer and Moses, works by John Atherton and George Hughes are included, giving the exhibition a broad look at the state of illustration during the years spanning WWII. Schaeffer's startling close-up paintings of American servicemen in action, as realistic as if he were an "embedded painter," offer an interesting contrast to the "Willie Gillis" series, wherein Rockwell showed the more mundane side of life in the army.

The 60th anniversary of the creation of Rockwell's Four Freedoms paintings, done during his Arlington years and included in the exhibition, are being commemorated by a lecture series, "Contemporary Perspectives on the Concept of Freedom in our World," that will culminate with the August 28 lecture by James MacGregor Burns, Pulitzer Prize-winning Presidential biographer and pioneer in the study of leadership. Find all details on the museum's website: www.nrm.org