In 1987 President Ronald Reagan appeared in a special campaign video created for Norman Rockwell Museum in 1987. Produced by The Blackwell Corporation in Washington, D.C., the video features President Reagan recalling the time he posed for Norman Rockwell during the late 1960s, and his thoughts on the future legacy of both Rockwell and the Museum.
Original artwork, archival photographs and materials from Norman Rockwell's sessions with then-presidential candidates Reagan, Johnson, Nixon, Kennedy, and Eisenhower, among others, can be seen in Norman Rockwell Museum's exhibition "Norman Rockwell: Illustrator in Chief" on view from February 15 through November 16, 2008. The exhibition features Norman Rockwell's portraits of these notable figures from 1952 to 1968, and explores his relationship with the candidates, and subsequently with the presidency. Rockwell's original portrait of President Reagan can be seen at The Norman Rockwell Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
artifacts This collections-based exhibition features Norman Rockwell's portraits of the candidates from 1952 to 1968, which bring us back to an America that witnessed the war in Vietnam, political assassinations, and one of the most complex elections in the nation's history. Rockwell's relationship with the candidates, and subsequently with the presidency, will be explored through correspondence and photographs from his personal papers, as well as his Presidential Medal of Freedom.
