For more information:
www.nrm.org/roseoneill
About the Exhibition
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Rose O’Neill: Artist & Suffragette is a special permanent collection installation in support of the Norman Rockwell Museum’s mission to present the art of illustration and showcase the power of visual images to shape and reflect society. This exhibition is especially poignant at this moment since 2020 marks the one-hundredth anniversary since women were formally given the right to vote, a cause to which Rose O’Neill (1874-1944) was strongly devoted. Rose O’Neill worked tirelessly to promote the right of women to vote by taking part in protests and speaking to groups, and by creating protest signs, magazine illustrations, and postcards featuring her famous Kewpies.
The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1870. Although it guaranteed the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” women were still denied voting rights. After passing through Congress on June 4, 1919 and receiving the necessary approval of three-fourths of the states on August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was officially ratified by the U.S. Secretary of State on August 26, 1920. The Amendment states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
This special exhibition is made possible through the generous donation of artwork by the Rose O’Neill Foundation, an organization created by her descendants. The artworks were donated to Norman Rockwell Museum in 2018 in an ongoing effort to preserve O’Neill’s legacy and inform the public of the life and work of one the most influential illustrators of the twentieth century.