Even before Maurice “Pops” Peterson began to reimagine Norman Rockwell’s iconic paintings, the two artists' lives had crossed paths several times. 

They were born less than a mile apart in Manhattan. When Rockwell was a teenager, he moved to Harlem and spent his teenage years there — a teenage Peterson would go to school on the same street. 

In Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Peterson would unknowingly purchase the house across the street from Rockwell’s last home. 

“Rockwell and I have a pretty magical connection,” Peterson said. 

After receiving acclaim for his “Reinventing Rockwell” photo exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts, Peterson continues to create art, write and engage in civil rights activism. He will discuss his work at a Learn and Lunch event at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute at 11:30 a.m. on July 28. 

Peterson didn’t intend to reimagine Rockwell illustrations when he first started creating. While working on illustrations for a blog, the artist created one with the feeling of a Rockwell — it looked like a painting and had the proper feel and content.

After that, Peterson wanted to see if he could recreate it on purpose and the series began. While many works recreate famous Rockwell paintings like his Four Freedoms series, some portray new situations in the same style.

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The most recent shows a preacher, his husband and their adopted son. 

The works, a combination of photography and digital painting techniques, were well-received out of the gate, with a long-running exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum and plenty of local media attention. They also resonated with the civil rights community. 

“They saw a lot of meaning in the fact that I used a diverse cast in my pictures, to show the diversity that’s going on in our community and our country these days,” Peterson said. “This struck a chord with a lot of people because people of color have always felt so left out of the American scene and the quintessential American landscape is the Norman Rockwell collection. So to see themselves in these situations where they’ve been excluded forever, it was powerfully moving to very many people.” 

The opportunity to speak with people, such as at the Learn and Lunch event, is the most gratifying part of his artistic career, Peterson said. 

“As an artist you do all these things and you put them out there and you expect people to like them, but it’s very rare that you get to see the reaction, feel the reaction or hear it one-on-one with the people who are actually experiencing it,” he said. 

Peterson has given talks at elementary schools, high schools and colleges, which he said gives him an incredible sense of joy and satisfaction. A scholarship fund in his name sent 12 kids to camps this summer, something he said he never imagined he would be able to do. 

“We sit at a computer or at an easel or whatever and we don’t know,” Peterson said. “We’re just doing something, you know, to fulfill our inner need but hoping it would actually have some kind of effect.”

Steve Howe is the city reporter for the Observer-Dispatch. Email him at showe@gannett.com.