323 Saturday Evening Post magazine covers and more than 50 original oil paintings by Norman Rockwell currently hang on the walls of the Tampa Museum of Art.
Their latest exhibition, “American Chronicles-- The Art of Norman Rockwell,” is on Display through May 31.
The pictures are filled with scenes of Americana. They are at times idyllic, patriotic and honest.
They include his World War II War Bonds paintings, as well as the famous 1964 painting “The Problem We All Live With,” depicting four U.S. Marshalls escorting a young African American girl into an all-white school as she walks past racist graffiti.
Rockwell based the painting on 6-year-old Ruby Bridges, depicting her walk into a New Orleans public school during the process of desegregation in 1960.
Rockwell reached a wide audience with his work starting in 1916 through the 1970’s. Many of his models were his friends and neighbors.
"He liked to use ordinary people because he was telling ordinary stories," said Tom Daly, the Curator of Education at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
He says Norman Rockwell's staying power is that he is a reflection of us.
“I think what Norman Rockwell did is he understood the human condition,” said Daly. “And he realized that many of the stories we think are just our own are everybody's stories-- they are experiences we all have."