FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2024

Exhibition Open Date: June 22

Stockbridge, MA—May 14, 2024—Boys sneaking past a “No Swimming” sign to take a dip. An old fisherman who’s caught a mermaid in his trap. These and other richly humorous illustrations by Norman Rockwell will be spotlighted this summer in Norman Rockwell: Illustrating Humor, a special exhibition opening Saturday, June 22, at Norman Rockwell Museum. The exhibition remains on view through Feb. 9, 2025.

Highlighting selections from Rockwell’s most amusing artworks drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection, Norman Rockwell: Illustrating Humor runs concurrently with What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine, this summer’s landmark exhibition of original art from one of America’s oldest humor publications. These thematically linked exhibitions juxtapose and illuminate two strikingly different veins of American humor, from the gently comical to the outrageously satirical. The underlying unity, however, is apparent in the brilliance of the illustrations and the successful intent to prompt viewers’ laughter and, perhaps, invite rueful self-recognition.

“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.

About Norman Rockwell as Humorist

Born during the height of vaudeville’s popularity, Norman Rockwell’s (1894-1978) narrative work spans a century of American humor reflecting the slapstick sketches of the early 20th-century stage to the mayhem of television variety shows of the 1960s. Drawn from the permanent collection at Norman Rockwell Museum, this exhibition of over 20 paintings and drawings examines the comical content of Rockwell’s funniest published illustrations and how he composed his scenes to engage and delight his ever-expanding audiences. Rockwell’s humorous innovations shine a spotlight on the changing face of humor in the United States as its citizens recovered from wars, endured The Great Depression, and met the uncertainties of a modern world.

Norman Rockwell came of age during a time when humor in the United States was deeply racist and sexist, and magazines were filled with derogatory depictions of United States citizens who were not Anglo American. These pernicious stereotypes never interested Rockwell, who turned his keen eye to the foibles and follies of his own family, friends, and community. In his earliest published work, Rockwell’s subjects were the pastimes and antics of adolescent boys and the comedic pathos and preoccupations of old men. His art also portrays, with observant admiration, determined girls and strong women. In the ’40s and ’50s, his stories became sequential, with a punch line or a sequence of charming events, such as the joyful activities over one day in the life of a young girl or boy. His late humor relies on an unforeseen circumstance of everyday life or an unlikely/likely pairing as a source of humor, such as his renowned portrait of a befuddled fisherman and his winsome mermaid catch.

About Norman Rockwell Museum

Norman Rockwell Museum illuminates the power of American illustration art to reflect and shape society, and advances the enduring values of kindness, respect, and social equity portrayed by Norman Rockwell. A comprehensive resource relating to Norman Rockwell and the art of illustration, American visual culture, and the role of published imagery in society, the Museum holds the world’s largest and most significant collection of art and archival materials relating to Rockwell’s life and work, while also preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting a growing collection of art by other American illustrators throughout history. The Museum engages diverse audiences through onsite and traveling exhibitions, as well as publications, arts, and humanities programs, including the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies, and comprehensive online resources.

NRM is open year-round, six days a week; closed Wednesdays. Admission is charged, Free for Kids & Teens. For details, visit the Museum online at www.NRM.org.

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