Traveling exhibition features Rockwell‘s ‘Four Freedoms’

STOCKBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) - Norman Rockwell’s most celebrated series of paintings is embarking on a multiyear tour across the US and to Europe.

The exhibit titled “Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt and the Four Freedoms” opens June 2018 at the New York Historical Society and ends with a five-month run starting June 2020 at the Memorial de Caen museum in France.

The exhibit features Rockwell’s works “Freedom of Speech,” “Freedom From Fear,” “Freedom From Want” and “Freedom to Worship,” inspired by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address.

It will also appear in Dearborn, Michigan; Washington; Stockbridge, Massachusetts; Houston; and Philadelphia.

The Norman Rockwell Museum says the works rallied the public behind the war effort and the exhibit “demonstrates the power of illustration to communicate ideas and inspire change.”