SHELBURNE, Vt. (August 21, 2026)—Shelburne Museum will celebrate the life, art, and enduring legacy of one of America’s most beloved illustrators with a special Norman Rockwell Day on Saturday, September 26, presented in conjunction with the exhibition Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont. The celebration brings Rockwell’s creative process and Vermont years to life through a lecture exploring his use of photography, curator-led exhibition tours, hands-on artmaking, figure drawing inspired by The Four Freedoms, and a rare gathering of people who modeled for some of Rockwell’s most memorable paintings.
Events kick off with a preview on Friday, September 25, with Proof: Norman Rockwell and Photography, a lecture by Russell Lord, Chief of Curatorial Affairs at Norman Rockwell Museum. On Saturday, September 26, visitors can spend the day immersed in Rockwell’s work through programs designed for art lovers, families, and aspiring artists alike.
Proof: Norman Rockwell and Photography
Friday, September 25, 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Free for members or with museum admission. Registration recommended. A livestream option will also be available.
Russell Lord, Chief of Curatorial Affairs at Norman Rockwell Museum, explores the important role photography played in Rockwell’s creative process. Rockwell frequently photographed individual people, objects and settings before carefully combining those elements into a single painted scene. Lord will examine how Rockwell’s dedication to photography allowed him to create images that were fictional as a whole, yet intimately connected to the real world. An art historian, curator, educator and writer, Lord has nearly three decades of museum experience and specializes in the history of photography and the relationships between different visual media.
Drop-in Artmaking: Decorate Your Own Rockwell Scene
Saturday, September 26, 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Free for members or with museum admission.
Rockwell’s paintings are filled with carefully chosen details that help tell a story. Visitors of all ages are invited to use collage and drawing to create their own Rockwell-inspired scene. Supplies are provided, and participants can drop in at any time during the session.
Curator Tours—Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont
Saturday, September 26, 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Free for members or with museum admission. Drop-in program; limited to 20 participants per tour.
Join Carolyn Bauer, Marna and Chuck Davis Curator of American Art, and Tom Denenberg, John Wilmerding Director and CEO, for guided tours of the exhibition, Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont. The exhibition explores how Rockwell crafted an idealized vision of Vermont—nostalgic, resilient and mythic—during his prolific years living in Arlington from 1939 to 1953. Through his illustrations, Rockwell offered a nation emerging from the Great Depression and weathering World War II a reassuring image of American life that was orderly, self-reliant and picturesque.
Model Behavior: A Panel and Gathering of Rockwell Models
Saturday, September 26, 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Free for members or with museum admission. Registration recommended.
One of the weekend’s highlights will bring together the people behind some of Rockwell’s most recognizable faces. Rockwell often turned to friends, neighbors and family members to model for his illustrations, capturing their expressions and personalities in images that became part of American visual culture. During this special panel, former Rockwell models will share memories of working with the artist and stories about how his celebrated images came to life. Participants include Mindy Pelham, model for The Babysitter; Mary Whalen, The Young Lady with the Shiner; Don Trachte Jr., Santa’s Visitors; Jim Edgerton, Growth of a Leader; and others. An extended audience Q&A will follow the conversation, with other Rockwell models in attendance invited to share brief anecdotes of their own.
Artmaking: Figure Drawing Inspired by The Four Freedoms
Saturday, September 26, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. No experience is necessary. Free for members or with museum admission. Registration recommended; limited to 25 participants.
Educators Sara Wolfson and Kat Redniss lead an all-levels figure drawing session featuring live models recreating and reimagining poses from Rockwell’s celebrated Four Freedoms series. Published in The Saturday Evening Post over four weeks in 1943, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear portray powerful moments of connection, expression, protection, and community. The session will include warm-up exercises followed by longer poses inspired by each of the four works.
About Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont
On view through October 25, Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont explores the artist’s years in Arlington, Vermont, where he lived and worked from 1939 to 1953. The exhibition examines Rockwell’s relationship with Vermont and its residents and considers how the people, places, and experiences he encountered there helped shape the enduring vision of American life depicted in his work. www.shelburnemuseum.org/exhibition/norman-rockwell-at-home-in-vermont/
For more information about Norman Rockwell Weekend, Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont, and registration for individual programs, visit shelburnemuseum.org.
High-resolution images available HERE.
PDF version of press release available for download HERE.
Image credit: Norman Rockwell, The Craftsman, 1963. Oil on canvas, 47 1/4 x 38 1/4 in. Collection of Shelburne Museum, gift of Polycor Inc. and Rock of Ages Corporation. 2024-12.1. Photography by Andy Duback.
About Shelburne Museum
Founded in 1947 by trailblazing folk art collector Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888–1960), Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont, is the largest art and history museum in northern New England and Vermont’s foremost public resource for visual art and material culture. The Museum’s 45-acre campus is comprised of 39 buildings including the Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education and Webb Gallery featuring important American paintings by Andrew Wyeth, Winslow Homer, Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses, John Singleton Copley and many more. Construction is underway for the Perry Center for Native American Art, designed in partnership with Indigenous voices and devoted to the stewardship and exhibition of the Native American art in the museum’s care, scheduled to open in 2027. For more information, please visit shelburnemuseum.org.
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