EXHIBITION CATALOG

The Imprinted: Illustrating Race catalog is available for purchase through the Norman Rockwell Museum Store

Exhibition catalogue featuring essays by noted scholars and curators and designed by Hollis King

Imprinted: Illustrating Race Exhibition Catalog by Robyn Phillips-Pendleton and Stephanie Haboush Plunkett. Illustration has been at the forefront of defining events in the United States from the Civil War and Reconstruction Era to the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s and today. Imprinted: Illustrating Race examines the role of the published image in shaping attitudes towards race and culture over the course of more than three centuries. This landmark volume accompanies the first comprehensive exhibition on the theme, tracing prolific stereotypical representations of race circulated through mass publication, and highlighting the efforts of twentieth- and twenty-first century artists who have worked intentionally to shift the cultural narrative, emphasizing full agency and equity for all.

Abundantly illustrated, Imprinted: Illustrating Race features essays by noted scholars, curators, and artists, presenting meaningful perspectives on the persuasive power of widely circulated art and design over time. Insightful commentary inspires deep consideration of visual imagery and the messages that are sometimes hidden in plain sight, weather in trade cards and advertisements, books and popular periodicals, or today’s digital screens. An illustrated, introductory essay by Robyn Phillips-Pendleton, whose foundational research has inspired this project, invites consideration of the interconnectivity of art culture, and industry, and the deeply felt presence of visual imagery in our lives.

Robyn Phillips-Pendleton is Professor of Visual Communications in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Delaware, Newark. A practicing illustrator, visual storyteller, designer, and educator, she has exhibited her work widely, is an artist for the United States Air Force Art program, and has created imagery for institutions, editorial magazines, and publishing companies. A member of the Norman Rockwell Museum National Advisory Board for Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & the Four Freedoms, which traveled internationally, she is also a member of the Board of Directors of New York’s Society of illustrators. Her research focuses on the history of illustration and the influence of published imagery on perceptions of race, and her essay “Race, Perception, and Responsibility in illustration” appears in A Companion to Illustration. Homework for Breakfast is her most recent illustrated picture book.

Stephanie Haboush Plunkett is Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Norman Rockwell Museum. The curator of many national and international exhibitions relating to the art of Norman Rockwell and the history of illustration, she leads the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies, the nation’s first scholarly institute devoted fully to the study of published art. She has written and spoken widely on the field, and “The Shifting Postwar Marketplace: Illustration in the United States and Canada, 1940-1970” in History of illustration; Drawing Lessons from the Famous Artists School: Classic Techniques and Expert Tips from the Golden Age of Illustration; and Norman Rockwell: Drawings, 1911-1976 are among her recent publications.

Hardcover, 200 pages. Measures 10″ x 13″ x 1″.