Norman Rockwell Museum has acquired the art and archives from the Famous Artists School in Westport, Connecticut, nearly doubling the museum’s collections. This major gift comprises more than 5,000 un-catalogued artworks, including several original works created by Norman Rockwell, plus an archive of hundreds of thousands of items.
With this newest acquisition, a collection that began with 125 paintings Norman Rockwell placed in trust with the Museum in 1974 now numbers more than 13,000 artworks. The Famous Artists School gift establishes Rockwell in the milieu of twentieth-century American illustration and advances the Museum’s aim to develop an encyclopedic collection of American illustration, creating a cultural context around its signature Norman Rockwell collection.
The Famous Artists School was founded in 1948 and became America’s most popular art correspondence course during the mid-twentieth century.