Norman Rockwell at the Akron Museum of Art

For nearly 50 years American artist Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) designed covers and illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post, but the artist’s career extended far beyond magazine work. Showcasing Rockwell’s portrayal of pop culture, with over 40 original oil paintings and 320 magazine covers, is the current exhibition at the Akron Art Museum: “American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell.”

Organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., visitors to the show stand before rarely-circulated works of the artist’s narrative genre scenes. The exhibit includes large oils picturing a wholesome American ideology, as well as gripping issues of the era and idiosyncratic portraits.

You casually move about the rooms, the works hang uncrowded by one another creating a spacious and unobstructed layout. Each image engages your eye and your mind creates the story of the captured moment. The realism of Rockwell’s style, the size of the works, and the layout of his scenes provoke inclusiveness, absorbing you into the chronicle of the event.

Highlights of the exhibit include a room dedicated to “Southern Justice (Murder in Mississippi),” done in 1965 and accompanied with archival documents and artist studies related to the historical work. Filling the walls of another exhibit room are hundreds of framed tear sheets from covers created by Rockwell during his long career at The Saturday Evening Post.

The exhibition runs through February 3, 2008; admission to “American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell” and the permanent collection is $10, students and seniors are $8, and children under 12 are free. The Akron Art Museum is closed Mondays and major holidays.

by Nicole Bryson

^{(photo credit: from the permanent collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum; © 1960 Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis)}