Freedom: Norman Rockwell's Vermont Years - Focus on America

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), August, 2003

After artist Norman Rockwell left the social swirl of New Rochelle, New York, he described moving to pastoral Vermont as having "fallen into Utopia," as the peaceful enclave of Arlington offered him a simpler, quieter life and the comfort and connection of a community of artists and writers. This would set the stage for one of the most important and acclaimed periods in his career, and is the subject of the second exhibition in a three-part retrospective that examines Rockwell's life, work, and the communities in which he lived. "Freedom: Norman Rockwell's Vermont Years," on view at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Mass., through Oct. 19, focuses on the span of time when the artist called Arlington, Vt., his home (1939-53).

Rockwell first came to Arlington when he was in his mid 40s and had already achieved success as an illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post. He was one of a group of illustrators--including Mead Schaeffer, John Atherton, George Hughes, and Grandma Moses--who found their way to the same locale, settled with their families, developed friendships, and turned the small town of Arlington into an outpost for the Saturday Evening Post. "Because of this closeness and their common endeavors--artists are usually solitary creatures--their consistent interaction accelerated their artistic energy and provided a fertile environment for their work," explains Linda Pero, curator of Norman Rockwell Collections. "And, though they all drew from the same pool of models from the town and were all [except for Moses] contributors to the Post, they worked very differently from each other, both in style and subject."

"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," notes Laurie Norton Moffatt, director of the Norman Rockwell Museum. It was an era of rapid growth and tremendous world change, and Rockwell's art reassured the nation that cherished values would not disappear. The exhibition spans the urgencies of wartime and the energetic post-World War II years.

Using local residents as his models, Rockwell discovered a freshness and simplicity that inspired him to create the memorable images that portrayed the flavor of life and human stories in an American small town. The impact the region had on his work was considerable, Everyday lives became American myths, and Rockwell found the town and its people the perfect setting to inspire his work.

"Moving to Arlington had given my work a terrific boost.... Now my pictures grew out of the world around me, the everyday life of my neighbors," he wrote in his autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator. "It was like living in another world. A more honest one somehow."

Included in the exhibition are a series of informal portraits of Rockwell taken by his associate, photographer Gene Pelham, and a fascinating collection of photographs of Rockwell, his family, his models, and his artist-neighbors from the Vermont years. In 1953, Rockwell and his family moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and this period will be the focus of an exhibition the Museum has planned for the summer of 2004.