Norman Rockwell's art brings UN values to life, says Ban

“We are so honored to now host the original Golden Rule as well as the United Nationsdrawing for the entire summer of our 70th anniversary year,” Ban told those gathered at the event yesterday evening.

The exhibition, We The Peoples: Norman Rockwell’s United Nations, runs through 15 September, and is being presented by the Norman Rockwell Museum, located in in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation and the UN Department of Public Information.

It features 33 original artworks by the iconic American painter and illustrator, including United Nations, a massive, complex charcoal drawing made in 1953 that portrays members of the Security Council and 65 people representing the nations of the world, and Golden Rule, a painting Rockwell made in 1961 where he celebrated the peoples of the world.

While a mosaic based on Golden Rule has been on display at the UN since 1985 – offered as a 40th anniversary gift on behalf of the United States by then First Lady Nancy Reagan – the drawing and the painting were never exhibited before outside their home at the Norman Rockwell Museum. They will be on display along with sketches, color studies and notes for both artworks.

“On any given day at the UN, you will find tourists, delegates and diplomats marveling before a beautiful mosaic – an amazing representation of Norman Rockwell’s Golden Rule” the Secretary-General noted.

“I often walk by and see people as diverse as the painting itself – standing in awe at its moving image of humanity and its message of compassion and community that are at the heart of all world religions.”

Almost a decade before that painting, Norman Rockwell came here, the UN chief added, saying that he wanted “to help the world out of the mess it’s in” – and he believed “the United Nations was our only hope.”

He composed a drawing he called the United Nations and kept in his studio, he explained. “Ultimately, it lit a spark that became the Golden Rule.”

In the drawing, three ambassadors of the Cold War era representing the Security Council are engaged in a debate. But standing right behind, flanked by the UN flag, are young and old, the hungry and the hopeful, peacekeepers and war-weary, described the Secretary-General.

In each of their faces, he went to say, you see their worries, aspirations, and drea“You feel their expectations. You sense their quiet but insistent demands to deliver results.”

If the United Nations Charter is our birth certificate, then Norman Rockwell’s United Nations helps bring it to life, with a powerful message: belong to the world, Ban concluded.

During the ceremony, remarks were also made by UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson; Kathy Calvin, President and CEO of the United Nations Foundation; and Laurie Norton Moffatt, Director and CEO of the Norman Rockwell Museum.

UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe