In Stockbridge, Norman Rockwell and civil rights

“The Problem We All Live With” (1963), by Norman Rockwell, at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Mass.

The museum reports it  is offering virtual exhibits with Google Arts & Culture “themed around civil rights and presidential politics. The exhibits are constructed like presentations, with written information and video to supplement the photos and illustrations each exhibit is centered around.’’

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 “Norman Rockwell in the Age of the Civil Rights Movement ‘‘ explores some of his famous illustrations in support of civil rights: “The Problem We All Live With,’’ “Murder in Mississippi (Southern Justice)’’  and "New Kids in the Neighborhood (Negro in the Suburbs)”.

Meanwhile, “Norman Rockwell: Presidential Elections Illustrated’’ showcases his portraits of presidents and presidential candidates, including John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, Dwight D. Eisenhower and many others. The museum says “Also shown are photographs of Rockwell and the presidents, and notes about his interactions with them. As Rockwell poignantly said, ‘I am no politician and certainly no statesman. But I have painted thousands of people and I should now be a judge of what their faces say about what they are.’’’

Meanwhile, the museum’s show “Presidents, Politics, and the Pen: The Influential Art of Thomas Nast” is a “showcase of the election art of the famous artist, whose politically charged and satirical cartoons often influenced the opinion of the American public, earning him the moniker of ‘The President Maker." ‘

The Austen Riggs Center, in Stockbridge, a psychiatric treatment center famed for its celebrity patients. Norman Rockwell’s second wife was mentally ill, which is a reason that the couple moved to Stockbridge from Vermont.

Stockbridge’s famous Naumkeag Gardens. now part of a museum, around 1908

At Naumkeag, the summer mansion built by powerful New York lawyer Joseph Choate The estate's centerpiece, besides its gardens, is a 44-room, Shingle Style country house designed principally by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White, and constructed in 1886 and 1887.