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Real, the ideological concepts that president roosevelt expressed in his state of the Union Address in 1941. Freedom oft is speech and expression. Verywhere in the world of everyd is freedom person to worship god in his own way, everywhere in the world. Want,ird is freedom from which translated into world terms, means economic understandings, which will secure to every nation, a healthy, peace time life for its inhabitants, everywhere in the world. Freedom from fear. This translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to centerpoint, and in such a fashion that no nation would be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world. [applause] [thundering applause] what people forget today is that the concept of four freedoms did not take immediate halt in the national psyche. A few artists made did not take immediate hold in the national psyche. A few artists made images but it did not capture the imagination in a way people would be excited about until Norman Rockwell. Thewells for paintings of four freedoms and cap elated encapsulated, made understandable and tangible, the values of each of those freedoms , and were arguably the most ,rominent and Public Images domestic images, of world war ii , and unified the nation. The exhibition begins with early rockwell paintings at the time of the new deal. The depression era. Giving a sense of what america was like prior to world war ii. Then it goes straight into the war years with the videos of speech four freedoms and reaction by other artists trying to encapsulate the four freedoms in art and other images of world war ii, following the introduction of fdrs date of state of the Union Address of 1941. We look at rockwells early were war images about the common person joining the military and what military life was like. A more lighthearted approach, and then really the heart of the exhibition is rockwells wrestling with these concept of four freedoms, of coming up with imagery that would capture the ideals in a convincing manner and then the spread of them across the united states, first through magazines, then posters, then the war bond drive, and then ultimately leading through the end of world war ii. The show culminates with some of rockwells great and lesser known works that confront civil rights and reimagine, i think, the values of the nation. Finally, the Rockwell Museum organized some 40 artists work to be shown, work that was done can temporarily, today, work by Living Artists to reflect upon the value of the four freedoms. To think about and to show a different context on how we might think of them today. Well, lets begin our tour. I would like to show you before we look at the four freedoms, i would like to show you the earliest images rockwell made of world war ii. He conceived a character named Willie Gillis, who is actually a 15yearold boy at the time, too young to enlist, but he created a series of images paintings for the , saturday evening post that were a lighthearted look at life in the military, one of his more famous ones is Willie Gillis receiving a care package. You can see he has received a box of goodies and he has made quite a few friends, and the friends have lined up, all looking at his package, and it became a lighthearted symbol of the military together, life on the base, training, this kind of thing. It would have been a cover for the saturday evening post. Today, sometimes the images change a little bit subsequent to their publishing on the post. I can show you in this on what i mean, but, first, let me it is important for us to know that these images, for rockwell, were valuable as photographs to go on covers of the magazine. The pictures themselves were not intended for museum use, for sale, or these kinds of things as we think about today in the art world. They were images to be photographed and he was paid for the photograph of the image, the cover, and they gave the painting back to him after he did it, so rockwell would paint retained the picture. After they had been published later on, sometimes the paintings themselves would have been given away or sold to others. This one, im pretty sure was sold to someone else and i can show you why. If you look at the background, and actually look at the hands, this is magnificent painting. This is an artist who has command of his craft and can reproduce the visual imagery of a meticulous manner. Rockwell, his brush and his reproductive skills, were as good as a photograph, sometimes better. If you look back, you can see the background gets murky. You look around, and all of a sudden, a great painter like this has sprayed paint on the sleeve of his image. Rockwell did not do that. Somebody did it later when they painted the background and took out the lines from the saturday evening post. There are other images of Willie Gillis. This one was never published. Willie, the young recruit, remember he was too young to enlist, but posed for the pictures, the rabbits foot for good luck. Willie gillis, so you know who he is, looking starry eyed and naively as these citizens are eating, smoking, sitting around, the veterans of war. It was actually thought of two too harsh a contrast and not published. This painting to the site is one of the better Willie Gillis images and more poignant. Willie is in a place of worship, with military superiors in front and behind, thinking about what is to come. The painting here, war news, was painted by rockwell late in 1944 and is an image of people in small town america listening to their news, getting their news, from the newspaper and the radio in the back. It is really a magnificent composition in that the artist takes you through the counter to this group of people, listening, watching, ears, hands, eyes, all coming together. We know from a sketch that the newspaper was to have on its cover a headline that says war plans for france. So there was a potential invasion of france being talked about prior to dday on the radio, and the figures here are gathering the news, listening to the news, as you would have, and showing the concern of people at home about the war abroad. This was actually not a cover and was not submitted to the saturday evening post because rockwell considered it too subtle and too hard for people to understand and read. He made another picture about the radio elsewhere in the exhibition. This image, a poster, is the only image that rockwell painted of actual combat taking place. Rockwell was uncomfortable with the concept of painting war and action. That was not really what he did. What he did in this one, showing the bullets being spent lets give him enough and on time. It was a poster to rally the factory workers to excite the people on the home front to support the war effort, and this was an image meant to show the bullets are needed and this fighting figure still with all the details of rockwell with the realistic imagery and all of this, very cleverly covers his face so that the fighter is any everyman fighting for the values of the nation. Norman rockwells quest to paint the four freedoms actually began in failure. He made a series of sketches and came to washington, d. C. , and presented them at the office of war information. The leadership at the time rejected the idea and send him away without a commission to paint roosevelts four freedoms. On his trip home, he stopped in philadelphia and met with his editors at the saturday evening post, who embraced the idea and instructed rockwell to go home, not to work on other features, to focus on the four freedoms. He was given three months to do the four freedoms and it took him seven to conceive and paint the pictures once he began. The First Painting he worked on, the one that gave him the inspiration for the series, was freedom of speech. And as rockwell recalls in his biography, he was struggling, as rockwell always did, struggling to come up with a concept and idea of how he would actually embody an abstract idea such as freedom of speech, and he said he woke up one night and recalled a meeting in the town of arlington where he lived at the time, a town hall meeting and a debate that took place in arlington about whether or not to rebuild the school that had recently burned down or whether their children would be bussed to the next district and taxes would be saved. He remembered an incident when his neighbor rose to oppose the idea of building the new school, and what he remembered is the rest of the meeting, listening respectfully, hearing the point of view, and then, by the way, the gentleman lost the vote. The town voted to enact the tax and to borrow 80,000 to build the new school house, so this was a dissenting voice. Rockwell data series of studies afterwards and woke up early and started sketching and creating images. We have some of his sketches showing rockwell wrestling with the various ways he could articulate this image, this idea of freedom of speech and what he remembers. And over a series of images, he came with the idea of essentially putting a blackboard in the background, a neutral background, so that the speaker would stand tall amongst a group of people who were listening, holding the annual report of the town and the agenda of the meeting, the agenda of the taxes. You see eyes looking. And ears emphasized, because freedom of speech is about the obligation to listen and respectful listening. So rockwell created this image that showed everyone paying respect and proper attention. By the way, that is an image of Norman Rockwell in the far corner, also showing his ears and eyes, ascending to the speech. Freedom of religion is probably the most difficult image that rockwell had to create because how often do people of different religions come together in a place of worship . People worship separately, each in their own place of worship, so rockwell created kind of a composition of humanity of different faiths coming together, all praying to a common god. Each according to the dictates of his own conscious. Freedom from want, rockwell painted during thanksgiving. There are two family members, his mother and his wife, the rest are neighbors and friends that rockwell posed to create an American Family celebrating thanksgiving. Really a symphony of white and a masterwork of still life. Water glasses, not the most lavish still life you would see, rather sparse except for the enormous turkey that is going to be there. And the figures gathering here, much like the saints would be gathered in a renaissance painting on each side, and the centerpiece gathering you together with i would suggest a divinelight looking in through the windows and the beautifully painted draperies that show life white, againstt the white tablecloth, against clear glasses, showing a spotless, clean, and unmessy table, showing americans coming together to celebrate thanksgiving in good cheer and family unity. A concept worth preserving, worth fighting for. In freedom from fear, we have a mother and father tucking in the two children. The newspaper has bombings, horror, and references. Probably the bombings of london, the london blitz of world war ii. If you look around the edges of this scene of serenity and peace, you look around the edges and see the doll, a reference possibly to a body of war, and the light in the back, to me, references the kind of orange glow of the fire bomb in the back. It is one of the more subtle images that shows the images of horror overseas that references them and shows the threat to the future generations. As i said before, the paintings of rockwell were not the images that americans sought. That americans saw. If you follow me, i can show you that americans would have come to learn about rockwells four freedoms through images from the saturday evening post. From february through april every other week, one of rockwells images appeared with a fullpage spread with an essay by a writer of their interpretation of freedom of speech or freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. The saturday evening post circulated to millions of people, so americans would have seen these images, much like americans today would have seen them on a television and would have talked about it in their community. Some of these essays are really quite poignant. The freedom of worship, one of the more difficult, abstract pictures in the series, actually has a magnificent essay by the writer will durrant. I will read a couple of passages man differs from the animal in two things. He laughs and he prays, but the mark of a man is that he beats his head against the riddle of life knows his infinite weakness of body and mind, lifts up his heart to hidden presence and power and finds in his face a in his faith a beacon of , heart rendering hope, a pillar of strength or his fragile decency. The essay ends and it is wonderful. If our sons and brothers accomplish this by their toil and suffering, they can carry to all mankind the boon and stimulus of an ordered liberty that will be an achievement the size of which all the triumphs of alexander, caesar, and napoleon will be a little thing. To that purpose, they are offering their youth and their blood to that purpose and to whom we others regretting that we cannot stand beside them, dedicate the remainder of our lives. So americans saw these, read about them, and in the following month, april of 1943, there was a war bond drive. So these images, having been rejected initially as sketches by the office of war information, became embraced by the federal war bond drive and the images were adopted as the symbols for the second bond drive. And the concept was that americans would invest, pay money for a bond that would mature in a number of years. It was about 18, and in 10 years, the bond would pay you back 25. The concept was, the idea was that they needed the nation to all come together quickly to raise the funds for munitions and to equip the nation soldiers appropriately. [video reel] hollywoods most famous movie stars leave the capital to help the government sell war bonds. Irene dunn, Ronald Coleman all part of a contingent of some 50 screen celebrities giving their time and talents to aid the national war effort. And the second war bond drive, the four freedoms were adopted as images of the bond drive and there was a Publicity Campaign that went to 17 different cities starting in washington, d. C. And rockwell came to the Department Store in d. C. And they showed off the posters and they printed in the millions, duplicate sets of the four freedoms. A set of four smaller images that were given to you when you bought the bonds. So you bought a bond you received images of the four freedoms to put up in your home. The large posters would have been sent around the country in post offices, schools and elsewhere to rally the nation to buy war bonds so the dissemination of this image in the spring of 1943 was pervasive and was seen as the face of the war effort at that time. [footsteps] Norman Rockwell was trained as an illustrator. He studied in the Art Student League in new york and learned the basics of painting and drawing the human body and mastered his craft, essentially with the skill of being able to recreate in drawings or in paintings, as accurately and realistically as a camera might. Although rockwell said in his autobiography that he sometimes looked at the world as a little too messy and not as ideal as he would like it to be, and therefore he made it more ideal in his paintings. He became extraordinarily well known through his art, first working for the boy scouts and then working for magazines. The great one being the saturday evening post. As an artist who appeared on cover of the post, millions of people would see his art, far more than were he an artist that was making paintings for a wealthy patron or a museum. He was a very popular artist and chronicled American Life from the teens through the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, up until the early 1970s. So, where this exhibition begins is in the early 1930s. Theres an image here from the saturday evening post cover of returning home from vacation a year after the stock market crash of 1929. So, while times were bad there was a market downturn, it was not the depression yet. So rockwell could look at life in still a very lighthearted way. This is the vacation from which you need a vacation. The family returned home exhausted. A little frog coming out of the childs box. The hastily packed suitcase, the camera, shoes untied. Worn out with signs about a wonderful vacation. It is something Many Americans could relate to, could see a little bit of their own lives in the cover of the saturday evening post which made the magazine such a welcoming when the mail arrived and the post was delivered. People would see something they would relate to at the time. Next to this picture is another painting of a vacation from 1938, but it is quite different. Posters of vacations, exotic ports of call, paris, mountains, vacations. And now, six years into the depression, a salesperson with no customers. Bored, unsuccessful. This was the vacation in america in the late 1930s as the ravages of the depression, unemployment, were spreading throughout the nation. A vacation meant something quite different. Remember the painting i showed you of the gentlemen around the lunch counter that were listening to the radio . Following that painting, rockwell painted this. A gentleman listening to the radio by himself in his home trying to hear the news. It is a much more personal image than the gentlemen at the lunch counter. I will show you why. First, look at his hand, trying to dial in. And you can imagine the static on the radio trying to get the sound clear so he can hear the messages coming through the radio. On his lap you can see the father with maps of france, england. A map of europe. The channel with the direction that he understands the military forces to be taking and up above him, eisenhower and mcarthur. Three stars and three photographs from the navy, the army, and the air force. Three sons of the man. As you see the clues around maps and the like, you realize he is trying to track the progress that his sons would be making on the warfront, each deployed in different areas, and you can see the map behind, american flags have been pinned on to the map. We can only presume they are the locations he believes his sons are fighting in. The painting, by the way, was later this was a saturday evening post picture and later given away to the editor of the Berkshire Eagle in western massachusetts. So what rockwell did, is he repainted the newspaper on the ground as the Berkshire Eagle and dedicated it to the staff to his friend and staff of the Berkshire Eagle. Another instance where the image would have been photographed, circulated in magazine form, the actual painting residing with the artist, rockwell himself, given away to a friend. Just at the end as world war ii ended, in thanksgiving, 1945, he made this image of the returning soldier with his mother for the thanksgiving issue of the magazine. Sitting on a chair that is a little too small for him, probably his boyhood chair, wearing civilian shoes but his military uniform. Peeling potatoes as people remember k. P. And peeling potatoes and the like but doing it in a joyous way of a homecoming, and it was meant to be an image of something to be truly thankful. Peoples images of Norman Rockwell and the saturday evening post the americana. Even a bit kitsch sometimes. People think about that and do not always know the late paintings of his career after he left the post. In 1961, the post was bought out. There was a change in management and rockwell left and no longer had to conform to the standards, strictures, and expectations of the saturday evening post. He could work on images that he wanted to do, and eventually wound up with look magazine, the rival to life magazine that was showing america, as it were, primarily with photographs. But in 1964, he made an image that has come to be quite famous called the problem we all live with. It was painted in 1963, reflecting upon an incident in 1960 of ruby bridges, the first little girl who was brought to an all white school as new orleans was segregated. The occasion of this painting was the 10th anniversary of brown versus the board of education, the Supreme Court case that mandated integration into the schools and declared separate but equal was not sufficient in the united states. However, it was understood that in many communities the foot dragging, the delays, lack of care of leadership of communities was delaying the integration of these schools. And rockwell, troubled by that, in the 10th anniversary, looked back, reached back for this image of ruby bridges and reimagined it based on photographs, documents of the time and created his own image that was starkly different in artistic ways from the images you would have seen in the photograph. The photograph showed the marshals who had to escort her from her home to the school bringing her into this allwhite school, would have seen them all together walking as a group up the steps to the school. In this case, he has removed the heads of the marshals and only showed them as figures of authority marching the first grader off to school, ruby bridges. He has made her elegantly dressed. And in fact, rockwell commissioned a resident of his town in massachusetts to make a new dress in white for his model for this image so that she was clean and oh, by the way, notice in her book that she holds stars on the book referenced to the american flag. Originally in the drawings and it is a vile, vile background of this picture by the way, the tomatoes being thrown, the vile graffiti here. K. K. K. It is a horrid image and it was a horrid scene at the time when protesters and basically angry mobs were at the side of the roads screaming at the girl as she was going, the poor girl, going to school at the time. Rockwell was so troubled by this in his original image he had ruby on this side and she couldnt be in the middle because it was a twopage magazine spread. So the crease of the magazine was in the middle and rockwell decided to move her to the front so that the little girl was leading the marshals, as opposed to the marshals leading the girl. Ruby bridges still lives in new orleans, has a foundation and is a trustee of the norman Rockwell Museum. This painting, i should add, was also brought to the white house. President obama asked for this painting and had it in the white house and had ruby bridges come to the white house, and she showed president obama the image. I think it is fair to say if it had not been for you guys, i might not be here and we wouldnt be looking at this together. Just having him say that meant a lot to me and always has. But to be Standing Shoulder to shoulder with history and viewing history must just once in a lifetime. Must be just once in a lifetime. 1964, rockwell wanted to reproduce for the magazine a gruesome killing of three students who went to mississippi to enroll voters. They were killed by clansmen. It is drawing for the image, rockwell focused on the assailants. In his final image he instead chose to make them in shadows, see you could not see the perpetrators of the crime, the clansmen who killed the students. But you saw them as shadows, as ghouls, goya, ore ghouls of some of the great artists have shown evil. Have something that cannot be attributed to one or two people, this is humanitys peo manitys evil,hu trying to wipe out good. Thewell was troubled by news he heard in the 1960 5, 1966, 1967. At one point he was commissioned to do paintings on the marines, and decided not to follow through and the commission because of his conflict with the war. In working through his thoughts, he came up with this image, from 19 six t eight, called the right to know. Recognizing the people have the obligation and to the right to understand the purposes for which the nation goes to our. To war. You see the empty chair here, the chair of authority. People of have come, diverse walks of American Life, young and old, and suits in suits, and norman walk will himself has come to ask Norman Rockwell himself has come to ask. I think by making it plain and not locating it in something as specific with congress with a microphone or person there, he symbolic,his a more a right,itous, rather than an incident. The right to know what have probably been something rockwell would have thought about, and the way he would have, freedom. As people think of rockwell as the typical American Family and the like, as he grew more mature and thoughtful, rockwell created a series of paintings and images bringing together diverse people. In this case, a study for the united nations. Russia, the united kingdom, and the united states, as political figures but surrounded by people from the world, and image kind of like a gandhi figure there. People from all nations brought together, and thought, contemplation, expectation, hope, desire. That the diverse peoples of the world could come together. We see this theme throughout rockwells late career, the late years of his life, as he does such works as the golden rule that reflect upon diversities of religion. All agreeing of a common theme, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And anl thought about, american white middleclass world, later in life celebrated the diversity of people. And the diversities of cultures. More a globale, citizen that we remember him as today, his paintings and his images and his drawings, certainly reflects that. In this exhibition we have carried that theme forward beyond rockwells lifetime. The Rockwell Museum, and organizing the show, put out a call for artists who wish to reflect upon the theme of freedom in America Today. Over 1000 entries were received. And a jury from around the art and other experts around the country, selected works by 40 artists, to reflect upon rockwells freedoms and freedom in America Today. So the show ends with these images that people can go by and see it modern takes on rockwell. Pops peterson who lives very near the Rockwell Museum, fear,ly freedom from except the newspaper has changed to, i cannot breathe. You have other images of freedom of speech today, shouting, accusing, pointing. Fake fake. Fake. Fake news gathering the news as they wish from sources they wish. We see in the images that have been submitted by the artists, much greater diversity of subject. White, from, diverse cultures. All creeds. Freedom of speech and liberty. In all national values. With religious figures from around the world all coming together. Human rights and eleanor roosevelt. This is part of the exhibition that has been extremely popular guests, and particularly younger people, who sometimes see the freedom of expression as expressed in the 1940s as limiting,lamenting sometimes monolithic, and now understanding that freedom in America Today is something that is vitally important. From what perspective someone comes from, to an extent they have received such freedoms and bestow that respect onto others. You can go through this part of the exhibition and see various themes of different peoples, and certain inhibitors of liberty, such as the intrusiveness of electronics and surveillance that enters peoples homes. Religious figures, the dalai others, all part of the same family. Rockwel ian an ideal lian in ideal, like the golden rule. And yet more diverse, more inclusive, perhaps, from the perspective of todays artists and todays viewers. Certainly some images of resistance. And the reminder that sometimes the nation has fallen short of its ideals. Era ofwerful image in an sometimes religious and cultural wrapped in the flag. Body, when the galleries are boastful, they tend to be here on the top floor when the galleries are most ,or, they tend most full they tend to be here on the top floor reflect on what is popular today and perhaps seeing themselves these images and identifying themselves among the various competing positions of these vital issues today. Been annd that this has exhibition that has brought great diversity to the museum. And peoples from all walks of life throughout the washington, d. C. Community, tourists and certainly our Academic Community , of professors, of alumni, and most of all students and graduate students, here at the George Washington university. Im a trained art historian from a background in renaissance baroque art, monuments of the 18th and 19th and some 20th century. I had written a book on the iwo jima one you meant, monument and knew a lot about the war bond drive. I knewrockwells art, how skillful he was as an artist. I knew his ability to recreate the visual was extraordinary, as good as any, most artists alive or who have ever left, perhaps. But his imagery was always thought to be a little light, a little fluffy, a little to americana. Some people would have called it kitsch. But when you see him wrestling with the serious issues of freedom. When he had to get away from the softer side of American Life, as seen in a family magazine, the saturday evening post, but instead look at the struggles of the nation and the perils of the world, he became much more serious. And was an artist of much more depth and thought, that i had originally thought in my own mind, with the biases i brought to the show. In the late rockwell. On was afrom 1961 person i think of profound thought who looked at the nations execution or living up to its values, and found that sometimes the nation fell short. And he had the courage to look at segregation in the schools. Segregation in housing. Racial bias. But also with hope that united nations, a peace corps, religions of the world coming together. He was an artist who reflected, i think with thoughtfulness and profundity, the american condition. And maybe as an artist a lot of times people talk about art artist, and a lot of people talk about art being not just an image but a mirror, and how the mirror reflects the society around it. Rockwell was, for better or worse, a mirror on the american psyche. Announcer during ideals, rockwell, roosevelt and the four freedoms is a traveling exhibit with houston, with stops in 20222021denver, from in stockbridge massachusetts where was organized. You can watch this and all other American History tv programs online at cspan. Org history. Announcer American History tv is on social media. Follow us at cspan history. Announcer next on the presidency, an encore presentation from cspan series first ladies influence and image. We will look at Grace Coolidge who served alongside Calvin Coolidge from 19231929. Susan Grace Coolidge was enormously popular as first lady, and influenced the taste of american women by becoming a style icon

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