“The picture reminds Steven Spielberg of Alfred Hitchcock looking at the next wave―at Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda about to make Easy rider.” © 1962 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing, Indpls, IN. All rights reserved. Photo © 2010 American Illustrators Gallery™ NYC
The exhibition Telling stories: Norman Rockwell from the collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg opened on July 2nd (through January 2nd, 2011) at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington.
Deborah Solomon writes in The New York Times:
In an age when Democrats and Republicans are barely on speaking terms, you might not think that decades-old paintings of freckled schoolboys and their loyal mutts could help revive the conversation about what we value as a nation. Yet Norman Rockwell’s cheerful America has lately acquired a startling relevance both inside and outside the art world, in part because it symbolizes an era when connectivity did not require a USB cable.
Maybe this is an inspiration not only to our American friends on this Independence Day: what do we value, as interdependent human beings and interdependent nations? How can we authentically connect with each other? How can art, our practices and beliefs help in this process?
Check the slideshows with pictures from the exhibition at The New York Times and also on the Smithsonian American Art Museum website.
