STOCKBRIDGE, MASS.- This fall and winter, the Norman Rockwell Museum explores the art of adventure through the work of celebrated illustrator Frank E. Schoonover (1877–1972). With more than 80 original works, Frank E. Schoonover: American Visions will trace the creative journey and eventful life of this influential Golden Age illustrator, one whose vivid, dynamic work was deeply informed by his own numerous wilderness voyages, undertaken to fulfill his belief that artists should live what they paint—an adage often repeated by his noted teacher, acclaimed illustrator Howard Pyle (1853–1911).

Organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum and curated by Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, the Museum’s Deputy Director and Chief Curator, the exhibition will include works on loan from the Brandywine River Museum of Art, the Schoonover family, and other public and private collections. It is on view from November 10, 2018, through May 27, 2019.

Ms. Plunkett states, “The Norman Rockwell Museum is honored to explore the inspiring accomplishments of this gifted artist. A contemporary of Norman Rockwell, Frank E. Schoonover fearlessly and successfully ventured into uncharted worlds—in both his life and his art—bringing them into vivid focus for generations of enthusiastic readers.”

Museum Director/CEO Laurie Norton Moffatt adds, “Frank E. Schoonover: American Visions continues the Museum’s exploration of the artistic lineage of past masters of illustration. We look forward to sharing the breadth of Schoonover’s remarkable and prolific career with our visitors, and are grateful to the public and private collections that have generously loaned works to this exhibition.”

Frank E. Schoonover: American Visions includes major oil paintings, historical book illustrations (drawn from among the 200+ books he illustrated), and dramatically staged adventure paintings created for such classic stories as Kidnapped, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, and Ivanhoe. These have been supplemented by drawings, photographs, handwritten daybooks, props, and personal effects that illuminate Schoonover's prolific career, life, and times, including his years as a student of Pyle His own long teaching career and his role in establishing the Delaware Art Museum is also being explored.

Throughout the exhibition, visitors will sense the influence of Schoonover's excursions to the American West, Jamaica, Europe, and Canada, all of which enabled him to provide access to places to which most would never venture. (On one trip, in 1903, he trekked some 1,200 miles in the Canadian north almost entirely by snowshoe, dogsled, and canoe.)