Norman Rockwells The Dugout finds a home in Chicago

Today, the Art Institute of Chicago unveiled the latest addition to its collection, a painting by one of the most popular artists of the 20th century. The picture has a connection to the Chicago Cubs. WDN's Mike Lowe reports from the Art Institute. The Art Institute of Chicago's American art collection includes some of the pillars of the nation's art history. Grant Wood's American Gothic, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, and Georgia O'Keeffe's Cowskull with Calico Roses. But the museum never held the work of one of America's most popular painters. It's the most extraordinary acquisition. Until now. And it is a painting by Norman Rockwell called The Dugout, which is one of the most iconic sports images and certainly a beloved image of the Chicago Cubs. Installers wearing Cubs caps. It seemed fitting, you know, it's an icon for the city. So yeah, we have to wear the Cubs hats. Wheeled it into the gallery and placed it prominently among the masterpieces. We did not have a Rockwell and certainly not a Rockwell that has, you know, direct relationship with the cultural life of Chicago Cubs. The oil painting is a gift from former governor Bruce Rauner and his wife Diana, who purchased it in 2009 at an auction for $662,500. We called the Art Institute and said, would you like this painting? And we said, we want to make sure that you don't just stick it in a closet somewhere. And they said, oh my gosh. We were pretty surprised by that because we've been sort of living with it just at home for so long. I'm elated and I'm sad. I mean, because I'd like to kind of be able to wake up and see it every day. But as he approaches his 70th birthday, the former governor said he wanted to give a gift to the city. It's not a painting that should be private. It's a public painting. It's a community, it's a community painting. And so I'm really happy that it's here. The dugout is a portrait of the actual Cubs manager, Charlie Grimm, looking miserable with his team in 1948. The story of this painting is that Rockwell visited Boston to do this cover. And he went to a double header between the Boston Braves and the Chicago Cubs. And the Cubs lost both of those games. And he even paid a Boston Bat Boy $5 to wear the Cubs uniform. It became the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. The painting cemented the team's image as the lovable losers. But to Rauner, those forlorn faces tell a deeper story. What it's really about is the intense emotion of sports. That's what I love. I'm a sports nut. I love the Cubs. And you win some, you lose some. And you gotta stay persistent. Rockwell, whose pipe was a fixture of his face, was 84 years old when he died in 1978. Perhaps the most widely known artist in America. He was known across the country as the prolific illustrator, whose nostalgic images of Americana appeared regularly on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. More than 200 covers he's done for the Saturday Evening Post. In total, Rockwell produced 317 covers for the Post between 1916 and 1963. Rockwell was extraordinary at sort of capturing a sense of how the United States was and how the United States wanted to be, how it perceived itself in his covers. His covers were incredibly relevant to what was happening. But not many of his paintings were sold. Now this depiction of dejection has a home among the American masterpieces, proving once again that misery loves company. There's really a timeless quality to this painting that makes it feel like it could be at any moment throughout the 20th century. At the Art Institute of Chicago, Mike Lowe, WGN News.