In 1920, the young but accomplished illustrator Norman Rockwell was commissioned by General Electric to create a series of paintings for their Edison Mazda Lamp Works division to be used to advertise tungsten filament light bulbs. The Norman Rockwell Museum is honored to present a rare series of these early twentieth century lighting advertisements created by Norman Rockwell and several fellow Golden Age illustrators.
Original Sisters is a series of portraits that reveals and honors the contributions of history-making women. To create the series, award-winning illustrator Anita Kunz carefully researched, wrote about, and portrayed each subject, sometimes compiling scant available information to establish a more complete picture. Her portraits present famed and lesser-known women in the fields of art, science, technology and invention, education, history, and politics, offering a needed expansion and revision of the historical record.
During World War II, Rockwell was inspired by the effort by FDR and others in defining and promoting American Values as a way to mobilize people in the fight against anti-democratic forces winning territory in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific. He took what he saw as abstract ideas in FDR's famous "Four Freedoms" speech and translated them into real-life contexts that regular people could relate to. These values were clearly meaningful to Rockwell in a way that lasted well beyond the end of the war, as something he passionately believed America would want to aspire to.
