The Art Of Norman Rockwell

The Gold Country Girls were lucky enough to be able to go and view American Chronicles : The Art Of Norman Rockwell at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento last week. We didn't expect it to be so crowded! But despite the crowd, it was a fabulous exhibit and I was thrilled to be able to see it. "Homecoming" is one of the paintings that was on display. I loved seeing it, and knowing that so many of his family and friends ( and also he, himself, of course!) were his models for the painting.

It had been many years since I had visited the Crocker Art Gallery. Last time I was there, it consisted only of the fabulous old, original building shown below - which I LOVE, by the way:

But, he new Teel Family Pavilion, which more than tripled the gallery space, opened in 2010. What a beautiful space it is! And so nice to have all the more room to house exhibits.

Tina took all of these photos for me:

Norman Rockwell's "Triple Self-Portrait" appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on February 13th, 1960.

The only area where you were allowed to take pictures inside was in a corner they had set up so that you could take your own photos in a setting like the one in his painting. I couldn't resist attempting a pose:

Thank you to Tina and Lori both for the few photos we got - I had forgotten my camera . But as I said, no photography was allowed, anyway. (Not that it stopped some of the people, who did what they wanted anyway. We didn't dare to break the rules!) Here was my second pose:

They had an entire gallery area where on both sides of sort of a long hall, they had hung framed copies of the Saturday Evening Post covers he had done. Maybe all of them; I'm not sure. But I was fascinated. There were some I had never seen. One of my favorites was a painting Rockwell had signed and given as a gift to Walt Disney. The Disney family had loaned it, I believe, for the exhibit. I REALLY wished I could have gotten a picture of the inscription. I did manage to find an image of it online:

From one great talent to another - how fabulous! I felt extremely grateful to have had the opportunity, with my sisters, to see some of his great paintings up close. It was really quite wonderful.