“Decades before MAD Magazine burst on the scene forever warping the American imagination — or liberating it, take your pick — Norman Rockwell captivated the nation with his wry wit. Rockwell was a master humorist who could depict a funny story in a single frame better than any illustrator of his day,” said Curator of Exhibitions Jane Dini, who joined the Museum staff earlier this spring from recent curatorial positions in American art at the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Detroit Institute of Arts. Norman Rockwell: Illustrating Humor is Dini’s debut curated exhibition for Norman Rockwell Museum.

This humor-inspired exhibition offers insight into the comedic content of more than 20 of Rockwell’s funniest illustrations spanning his long and distinguished career. Early works include Boy with a Baby Carriage (1916), an illustration that humorously portrays tensions around shifting gender roles in American society. As Rockwell’s first published cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, the painting launched his half-century career entertaining America through Post covers. Also spotlighted are illustrations from the artist’s mature career, such as the fantastically star-studded The Saturday People (1966), created for McCall’s. Encompassing most of the 20th century, Rockwell’s illustrations can be seen to respond to, reflect, and influence the evolution of American humor across the decades during which vaudeville gave way to slapstick film and TV variety shows as American society and culture underwent profound changes.

“Both Norman Rockwell and the satirists of MAD Magazine had a gift for visual storytelling and an eye for comic detail. Their art memorably captures the comedy of human nature and the variety of human situations,” said Norman Rockwell Museum Chief Curator Stephanie Plunkett.

This summer’s paired exhibitions reveal how humor can inspire new ways of seeing and create social change, whether by capturing common experiences with comic undertones, tracking shifting societal norms, or critiquing cultural and political realities. Rooted in humor, enlivened by visual storytelling, and filtered through each artist’s unique perspective, the illustrations in both exhibitions show us our world and ourselves — through lenses that range from poignancy to parody.

“Rockwell’s influence on a century of American humor comes sharply into focus alongside MAD’s ‘Usual Gang of Idiots.’ This summer, the pranks and practical jokes showcasing Rockwell’s keen sense of humor will be seen in parallel with the pointed satire and parody of MAD artists. All of them took our culture by storm using their talent to make us laugh — harnessing humor to evoke compassion and to increase our social awareness,” added Director/CEO Laurie Norton Moffatt.