Scouting, Volume 98, Number 5, November-December 2010 Page: 8
60 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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I
I
NOW SHOWING
Rockwell and
the Movies
What do George Lucas and Steven
Spielberg have in common with mil-
lions of Scouts and Scouters? These
great American filmmakers both
love and admire the work of Norman
Rockwell, who spent decades illustrat-
ing stories and painting covers for Boys'
Life and the annual Brown & Bigelow
Boy Scouts calendars.
Of course, when your movies have
brought in billions of dollars, you can
do more than just admire an artist:
Lucas and Spielberg have long been
major collectors of Rockwell's work.
Now you can see a
sizable portion of those col-
lections at the Smithsonian
American Art Museum in
Washington, D.C. The film-
makers, who teamed up on
the popular Indiana Jones
series, have aligned again—
this time to arrange the
loan of 57 of their Rockwell
paintings and drawings for
an exhibition that opened
in July.
Exploring the relation-
ships between Rockwell's
images of American life
and the movies, the exhibi-
tion showcases the artist's
ability to distill a narrative into a single
frame—a characteristic that inspired
both Lucas and Spielberg as they con-
templated careers in filmmaking.
As did the Boy Scouts, in Spielberg's
case. "When I went for a Photography
merit badge, I made a little 8mm
movie," the Eagle Scout says. "And
the Boy Scouts in my troop—294,
Scottsdale, Ariz.—liked the movie,
made a lot of noise, laughed, clapped,
and all that. I got that great virus of 'I've
ROCKWELL
SPIELBERG
Rockwell's Spirit of America (1929) represents just one artistic highlight
of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's exhibition and catalog.
got to do this the rest of my life.'"
Lucas, who started collecting comic
art as a kid, adds that "growing up
on Rockwell" gave him an edge as he
entered the movie business because of
the artist's ability to "cast" a painting.
"They're designed, they're written,
and they're put in there very specifi-
cally," he says of the people Rockwell
used in his artworks. "Each one—their
faces, their expressions, their think-
ing—everything about them has been
cast. That's what you do in the movies.
He's fabricating a story."
See "Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell
From the Collections of George Lucas
and Steven Spielberg" before it closes
Jan. 2, 2011. Admission is free, and you
can find more details at americanart.
si.edu. It's a perfect opportunity to view
the art that "captured society's ambi-
tions and emotions," says Lucas.
SCOUTING * NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2010
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 98, Number 5, November-December 2010, periodical, November 2010; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth299171/m1/10/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.