Rockwell collections of Spielberg, Lucas link to inspiration for films

By Shea Northcut

Director Steven Spielberg said Norman Rockwell’s “And Daniel Boone comes to life on the Underwood Portable” illustrates how he created his own movies. Collection of Steven Spielberg

WASHINGTON – Filmmakers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have more in common than just their big-screen hits. Each owns significant collections of work by American artist Norman Rockwell.

In fact, their collections inspired some of the award-winning work that has spanned the past few decades. Virginia Mecklenburg, senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, made the connection.

“It’s time for people to look at Rockwell’s pictures and understand that there are ideas that were explored by Spielberg and Lucas in their movies,” Mecklenburg said. “The ideas that are generated in people’s minds by the movies can now be explored in these pictures in a much deeper way.”

The exhibit, which opens Friday, showcases more than 50 major Rockwell paintings and is the first to feature the relationship between the arts. Museum Director Elizabeth Broun said the museum hosts exhibitions on all kinds of artists and themes but always has one goal in mind.

“We always try to look at who we are as a country and how we became the society that we are today,” Broun said. “There is probably nobody who did that subject better than Norman Rockwell.”

Starting in July 2008, Mecklenburg worked closely with Spielberg and Lucas. She traveled back and forth to California to gather art from their homes, offices and studio headquarters.

“They were generous, responsive and so gracious to let us borrow pieces from their collections,” Mecklenburg said.

Unlike any of the more than 25 exhibits that she has done in the past, Mecklenburg said this one was special and unique. She said that this would be one of the biggest highlights in her 31-year career at the museum.

The exhibit, “Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg,” includes more than 50 pieces of artwork at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. SHFWire photo by Shea Northcut

“This for me has resonance because I was one of those kids who came running home from elementary school in the 1950s to see Rockwell’s art on the front page of the Saturday Evening Post,” Mecklenburg said.

Both Broun and Mecklenburg said the exhibit would be a crowd-pleaser and that they hope to inspire more thought and research between films and artwork.

Rockwell captured the ambitions and emotions of Americans for more than 50 years by showing stories of the American ideal in a single frame. In many ways, he worked the same way a film director does. Rockwell auditioned the models, selected costumes and props and acted out each part so the models would know exactly what he wanted.

Those practices attracted modern film directors to his art. While Lucas focuses on the imaginative and creative side in films such as “Star Wars,” Spielberg focuses on acts of heroism found in “Saving Private Ryan.” By following Rockwell’s work, they said they already knew how to develop a story.

“Although they have very different styles, a taste of Rockwell’s paintings is directly mirrored in both filmmakers’ movies,” Broun said.

Spielberg said in a 2008 interview with Mecklenberg and filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau that Rockwell’s “And Daniel Boone comes to life on the Underwood Portable” illustrated the way he would sit down to write a movie. He would wait for an image to appear in his head so he could create a concept never imagined.

Another painting, “Boy on a High Dive” from 1947, inspired his direction in the 1993 Oscar-winning “Schindler’s List.”

“For me, that painting represents every motion picture just before I commit to directing it,” Spielberg said in the interview. “For ‘Schindler’s List,’ I probably lived on that diving board for 11 years before I eventually took the plunge.”

Lucas said in the same interview that he was inspired by the way Rockwell showed an ideal version of life, which was reflected in his 1973 film, “American Graffiti.” This movie was named one of the 100 Greatest American Movies by the American Film Institute.

“I wanted to show a uniquely American mating ritual of the ‘50s and ‘60s, to show how boys related to girls. And that’s a direct descendant of Rockwell,” Lucas said in the interview.

“Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg” closes Jan. 2.