Illustrations of life: Norman Rockwell's contract with Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. led to 81 pieces of art.

Think of American artist Norman Rockwell and you're likely to recall--if you're old enough--his 47 years of cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post.

But there was another association that resulted in 81 black-and-white drawings. It was between Rockwell and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., which commissioned him to create scenes reflecting family life for a national advertising campaign. And it was this association that was celebrated recently at an exhibition at the FoundryArt Centre in St. Charles Mo., a suburb of St. Louis.

The exhibition was very well received by the public, according to Laura Helling, assistant executive director. During that period, Rockwell was the only illustrator whose works were on display at the site, located on the banks of the Missouri River.

"It's a shame that it's only running through Jan. 67," said Helling before the exhibition closed. Many of the visitors were families, and the children often seemed as familiar with the images as the parents, she said. "It's been fascinating to watch them. Many of the kids knew the illustrations from their Dad's old issues of Boys' Life. Rockwell is just so cross-generational."

MassMutual commissioned Rockwell for the family-life series of illustrations about the time the artist moved in 1953 from Arlington,Vt., to Stockbridge, Mass., a town about 40 miles west of the company's headquarters in Springfield. "MassMutual wanted a simplified, clean, crisp imagery people could relate to in their own lives, like a mother and children baking, kids selling lemonade, people washing a dog," said Helling. "The idea was that these familiar things were worth protecting."

Rockwell reportedly used a hard, grease-free type of crayon for the sketches. MassMutual chose the black-and-white medium because it represented a contrast to the color advertisements used by most companies in the 1950s and 1960s, and the company hoped it would "grab people's attention," said Tom Daly, curator of education at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stock bridge. The company ran ads with the drawings in The Saturday Evening Post, Time and Newsweek, he said. The museum owns the images and made them available to Foundry Art Centre.

The 1930s and 1940s are generally considered the most fruitful decades in Rockwell's career, and the MassMutual commissioned work was important to Rockwell in that it gave him the assurance of long-term income. "He had a company that would give him work for a number of years in a row," said Daly. "He was always worried about staying in the public eye and having work, and this came along as his work with The Saturday Evening Post was winding down. He ended working with the Post in 1963." Rockwell's MassMutual relationship lasted slightly more than 10 years.

Rockwell painted his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post in 1916 at age 22. In all, he produced 321 cover illustrations.

Rockwell's paintings of the Four Freedoms were inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt's 1943 address to Congress. They tan in the Post accompanied by essays by contemporary writers.

In 1963, Rockwell began a 10-year association with Look magazine. During this time, he illustrated his concerns about civil rights, America's war on poverty and the space program.

In the 1970s, he established a trust to preserve his legacy that resulted in the museum in Stockbridge. He died in 1978.