Norman Rockwell Museum Announces Crowd-Funded Campaign

STOCKBRIDGE, MA—Norman Rockwell Museum (NRM) announces the launch of a $50,000 Go Fund Me campaign to preserve iconic Rockwell paintings. After a two-year, seven-city tour, the special exhibition Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & the Four Freedoms, returns to Stockbridge and will be on view September 12, 2020 through January 17, 2021. After the final stop of the tour, Rockwell’s most iconic works will be ready for their periodic conservation treatment and NRM is inviting the public to be a part of the process to preserve these iconic paintings for future generations.

The Problem We All Live With, Rockwell’s renowned civil rights-era painting of Ruby Bridges walking to her newly desegregated elementary school in New Orleans in 1960 is the Museum’s most requested painting by visitors and museums around the world and has been viewed by over 10 million people since the Musem’s inception. Its portrayal of the young Ruby, walking past hurled tomatoes and a harsh racial epithet scrawled on a wall, captures the essence of the tense scene as it unfolded during the civil rights movement.  Periodic conservation is necessary for this work and the iconic Four Freedoms to ensure that Rockwell’s masterpieces maintain their original brilliance.

“We invite you to be an art conservator – the one who saves a masterpiece.  When you participate in this GoFundMe initiative, you will be fulfilling the wishes of Norman Rockwell himself, who asked that his art be widely shared for education and for enjoyment by the public. We invite everyone who has been moved by Rockwell’s hopeful and honest images to join this effort to preserve a masterpiece for future generations,” commented Norman Rockwell Museum Director and CEO, Laurie Norton Moffatt.

The campaign will launch on Go Fund Me on Sunday, February 2, 2020. All levels of support are welcome,  with thank you gifts including:

$1,000: Private cocktail reception and preview of Four Freedoms in September 2020

$500: Frank E. Schoonover limited edition print of Hopalong Cassidy

$250: Print of The Problem We All Live With

$100: Invitation to opening reception of Four Freedoms in September 2020

$50: Two passes to Norman Rockwell Museum

For more information and to donate visit: www.charity.gofundme.com/conserverockwellicons