Free 'Election Day' admission today at Cedar Rapids Museum of Art

The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is offering free admission all day today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Get out and vote, then stop by the CRMA to see Norman Rockwell's Election Day. For more information, call 366-7503 or visit www.crma.org.

In 2007, the citizens of Cedar Rapids rallied together to purchase a series of watercolors destined for the auction block in New York. These five watercolors, by acclaimed 20Saturday Evening Post.  To complete the Post commission, Rockwell traveled to a quintessential Midwestern town, Cedar Rapids, to study local citizens as models for his series of images.

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century American artist Norman Rockwell, depicted scenes associated with an election day and were created specifically for the November 4, 1944 issue of the

In the 65 years since his visit, numerous anecdotes and stories have arisen about the artist's time in Cedar Rapids and the creation of this work.  This exhibition uses these five, newly conserved and restored watercolors, an oil painting from the Norman Rockwell Museum, along with numerous photographs taken by local photographer Wes Panek for Rockwell, to investigate the many facts and fictions associated with Rockwell's visit and this set of watercolors.

Norman Rockwell: Fact & Fiction will be on display through Jan. 3, 2010.