Norman Rockwell Museum is excited to announce Anita Kunz: Original Sisters, Portraits of Tenacity and Courage, a forthcoming exhibition of artworks by internationally acclaimed Canadian illustrator Anita Kunz. On view from November 9, 2024, through May 26, 2025, Original Sisters presents selections from the artist’s groundbreaking series of portraits of diverse and extraordinary women from ancient times to today, many unknown or under-recognized. This exhibition uncovers, amplifies, and celebrates the achievements of changemaking women worldwide, while also weaving together a “lost history” of women’s distinctive contributions within every possible field of endeavor.

Norman Rockwell Museum is the first American museum, and just the third venue worldwide, to present original portraits from Kunz’s Original Sister series. Approximately 240 Sister portraits will be on view at the Museum, accompanied by brief written profiles compiled by the artist.

Featured portraits reflect a wide diversity of women, cultures, time periods, and fields of achievement, including powerful female pharaoh Hatshepsut, engineer, physician, and NASA astronaut Mae Jemison, anthropologist Margaret Mead, dancer Josephine Baker, ballerina Maria Tallchief, singer-songwriter Nina Simone, environmentalist Rachel Carson, poet bell hooks, painter and photographer Dora Maar, artist Alice Neel, environmental activist Greta Thunberg, primatologist Jane Goodall, politician and activist Shirley Chisholm, current vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and many more.

The works on display are drawn from Kunz’s collection of 450 portraits she has created since early 2020. Importantly, the Original Sisters project is ongoing and open-ended—as expansive and inclusive as the lives and stories of women themselves.

“Norman Rockwell Museum is thrilled to partner with Anita to bring these essential and inspiring portraits to the public. The vision and spirit of Original Sisters and the care with which Anita has evoked these women is truly remarkable,” said Norman Rockwell Museum Curator of Exhibitions Jane Dini. “Anita Kunz: Original Sisters is an example of a politically and socially significant project that is artistically deft, beautiful, and moving.”

As a special dimension of the exhibition for the local community, Norman Rockwell Museum has commissioned the creation of three “Berkshire Sisters”—significant women tied to our region whose portraits will be featured in the exhibition and, thanks to Kunz’s generous donation, will enter the Museum’s permanent collection. Two of the three portraits depict historical figures, while one renders a contemporary woman.

The portrait subjects are: Elizabeth Freeman, the first African American woman to successfully file a lawsuit for freedom in the state of Massachusetts, initiating a group of “freedom suits” that ultimately led Massachusetts to outlaw slavery; novelist, interior designer, and landscape architect Edith Wharton, the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize; and Shannon Holsey, President of the Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohican Indians and a leading voice for Tribal stewardship of economic, environmental, cultural, and intellectual resources.

“Our Museum is honored to present Anita’s artistically striking portraits of women, often missing from history, who have changed the world—and are still changing and advancing our culture and society. These portraits reflect a breathtakingly rich diversity of women, including pivotal women connected to our Berkshire community. At the cusp of a new political and cultural moment, Anita’s celebration of women’s strength, perseverance, and undeniable impact has a particularly powerful resonance and meaning,” said Norman Rockwell Museum Director/CEO Laurie Norton Moffatt.

The exhibition will also serve to introduce audiences to artist Anita Kunz and her distinguished 45- year career as an illustrator for virtually every top national and international publication, including The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, GQ, The Nation, Time, Newsweek, and Ms. Magazine. Canada-based Kunz excels at conveying complex social and political commentary with visual ingenuity and economy using arresting imagery.

She is also widely known for her vivid and richly colored portraiture that evokes the context, emotional presence, and wider significance of the subjects she depicts. Thirty-nine of Kunz’s original illustrations from different aspects of her career have been donated by the artist to Norman Rockwell Museum’s permanent collection. See a full bio of Kunz below.

“It is such an honor to have these portraits of extraordinary women presented by Norman Rockwell Museum,” said Anita Kunz. “One of the most exciting aspects of this project has been uncovering the hidden lineages and linkages that connect women across culture and time. Bringing so many of these portraits together in a beautiful museum space will give audiences a chance to make new connections and celebrate women’s history as our collective history.”

Kunz continued, “One of the lessons I learned early on is that art has the power to move people. Every one of the Original Sisters has inspired and sustained me as an artist, and I hope audiences feel excited and energized by these women and their stories.”

Museum visitors will be invited to engage with Anita Kunz: Original Sisters in personal and timely ways. The exhibition opens during a groundbreaking election season, with Kamala Harris making history as America’s first woman of color presidential nominee from a major political party.

On display through the spring, the exhibition will continue to highlight and amplify women’s essential contributions to politics, science, activism, the arts, education, and other fields through programming during Women’s History Month in March. Throughout the exhibition’s seven-month run, audiences will have the opportunity to contribute their suggestions for Original Sisters portraits and to reflect on women of influence and significance in their own lives.