Somehow, the days of feathered quills, snuff and pointy hats seem not so long ago, yet centuries have passed. In celebrating the nation’s birthday, or its difficult-to-pronounce semiquincentennial, through Oct. 26, Stockbridge’s Norman Rockwell Museum is providing an encyclopedic view of our nation’s history as told by artists, photographers and crafts people.
© Irina Boriscova Credit: Mel Evans
“The goal here is to illustrate, as well as possible, how America is defined and depicted in pictures made over the last 250 years,” Russell Lord said during a press reception. He’s the museum’s chief of curatorial affairs and was joined by the site’s chief curator Stephanie Plunkett. “This is a very large show,” he added, noting that the number of artworks totals a figure “north of 300.”
The three year search for images took in all points of the compass and the treasures range from works by Ben Shahn and Rockwell Kent to the Ukrainian artist Irina Borisova and the Native American Jaune Quick-To-See Smith.
“The idea is for all of us to see things that we may not have seen otherwise,” Plunkett said.
The early years
Your eye may first be drawn to copies of the first Revolutionary War battles as engraved by Amos Doolittle and Paul Revere. Doolittle captures “The Battle of Lexington” of 1775 as a quaint rural setting of homes and fields where a firing line of British soldiers, wreathed in smoke, wreaks havoc upon a hugely outnumbered militia. Revere’s historically inaccurate depiction of the March 1770 “King Street Massacre,” wherein an unarmed mob in Boston was fired upon by British soldiers, became a rallying image for colonists.
Setting a different tone, nearby is a whimsical Norman Rockwell rendering of Yankee Doodle, the study for a painting to be found at the Nassau Inn in Princeton, New Jersey. Hessian soldiers taunt the horseman, who, with a feathered cap, thinks himself a “macaroni” or fashionable fop. The verses of the song were used by the British to ridicule ill-equipped and unkempt Yankees, their allies during the French-Indian War. The verses, however, later underwent a sea change and became a popular, unifying song for our soldiers fighting the Red Coats.
A dominating figure from that same period, Thomas Jefferson, was the object of significant controversy for 170 years after his death. Harvard University professor Annette Gordon-Reed left few stones unturned in positing that our third president had fathered children with his African American maid Sally Hemings. Her 1997 book “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy” sent a lightning bolt to naysayers and Jefferson purists. DNA testing in 1998, however, of living generations of the Hemings and Jefferson families confirmed what had often been surmised since our country’s founding. Here you will find two photographs by Jane Feldman of the direct descendants posed at Jefferson’s Monticello home and the Jefferson Memorial.
Xenophobia
There are many unusual images, not often seen. A 1943 Rockwell painting, which appeared as a “Saturday Evening Post” cover, depicts a young Italian woman in worn clothing. For small comforts, she’s wearing an Army jacket for warmth and has been provided rations. Around her are the ruins of war and the work is titled “Thanksgiving Refugee.”
“Rockwell really meant it to be a reflection on the idea that Thanksgiving is really fraught in certain ways,” Plunkett said. “This is really a very poignant reflection.”
Another dramatic painting by the artist from that period depicts a machine gunner in battle. Needing to accurately depict the large apparatus, Rockwell was impressed by the Army’s efficiency. A jeep not only delivered the gun and tripod, but spare ammunition as well. Rockwell abhorred the subject of war and soon after began illustrating President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms.” The paintings, to be found in their own gallery, depict the essence of the president’s 1941 speech.
Not far away you can find 21 familiar personalities, such as the composer Igor Stravinsky, the statesman Henry Kissinger and physicist Albert Einstein aboard a ship in a painting by Julian Allen. He created the image for a 1983 “Esquire” magazine article, which drove home the point that we are a nation of immigrants. A few paces away, there’s a satirical illustration by Tim O’Brien titled “Go Back Where You Came From” depicting The Statue of Liberty knee-deep in water heading east back to France.
“It’s a xenophobic phrase that’s been leveled at a lot of people,” Lord said. The illustration, he added, “is a reminder in itself that the statue is a foreigner.”
Nearby, there’s a somber painting by the Ukrainian Irina Boriscova. There’s an M.C. Escher kaleidoscope with apartment houses and stairs serving as background for several photographs.
“I think about what home means,” the artist said during the reception. “This picture reflects my old photographs (of family), architecture and also memories. It’s like nostalgia for what we lost.”
It’s a quietly dramatic image, as is the Bryan Collier depiction of the moments before a peaceful voting rights march of some 600 people was set upon by Selma, Alabama police with night sticks and tear gas. The March 7, 1965 incident became known as “Bloody Sunday,” spurring the passage of the Voting Rights Act. The painting is the cover of Carol Weatherford’s new book “Troubled Waters.”
Credit: Andrew Rush
Rivers and falls
Among the arresting images there’s a large, 1945 canvas by Rockwell Kent extolling the virtues of coal power. Titled “To Make Dream Homes Come True,” a muscular giant holding a lump of coal casts light upon households below. Kent was commissioned by the Bituminous Coal Institute to create paintings to promote the fuel as the leading energy supplier in postwar America.
“He later came to regret this and actually tried to destroy some of the paintings,” Lord said.
Kent may have been more well known today; however, his politics were radical. He publicly made it known that a form of Communism was the solution to America’s social problems.
One of our region’s serious environmental problems is no further away than the Housatonic River, bordering the museum. For 45 years General Electric discharged PCBs into its currents and the cleanup has been a mammoth undertaking. The artist Jim Schantz has painted the river throughout its seasons and examples of his work are here.
“I think it’s really important to recognize what’s right next door to us. The river is a place for quiet meditation,” he said during the reception. “It’s a very spiritual place … It’s surviving and it’s recovering.”
It’s worth noting that in the nation’s early years, the European argument was that the flora and fauna in the Colonies were degenerate, weaker and smaller than their Old Country counterparts. Jefferson, then our country’s minister to France, asked a former army general to send “the skin, skeleton and the horns of the Moose” and other large beasts. They were publicly displayed in Paris and the argument vanished.
An environmental painting, “Moving Waters…” which dwarfs all the other canvases and occupies an entire wall, was created by Stephen Hannock over the course of 20 years.
It’s unmistakably Niagara Falls. Although Oscar Wilde quipped that it was newlyweds’ second-greatest disappointment, naturalist John James Audubon, by contrast, wrote that he first witnessed it while “all trembling … What a scene! My blood shudders still…”
The waterfall has been classically painted numerous times and Lord noted that the reason was compelling.
“It was recognized as a site of grandeur,” he said, “and used to inspire Europeans to the bounty and majesty of the country.”
“American Stories: Revolution to Rockwell” continues through Oct. 26. The museum is open Monday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $25 for adults, $15 for college students, $5 ages 6 to 18 and free for children 5 and under.