Award-winning film directors Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have another shared passion — amassing the works of illustrator Norman Rockwell — and will be uniting their collections in a major exhibit.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., said more than 50 of Rockwell's iconic paintings and drawings will be on display next July, courtesy of Spielberg and Lucas.

Director George Lucas is teaming up with friend and screen collaborator Steven Spielberg for an exhibit of 50 Norman Rockwell works next year. (Associated Press)

The show will be "the first major exhibition to explore the connections between Norman Rockwell's iconic images of American life and the movies," the museum said.

"Lucas, Spielberg and Rockwell perpetuate ideas about love of country, personal honour and the value of family in their work," Virginia Mecklenburg, the exhibit's curator, told The Guardian newspaper.

"With humour and pathos, they have transformed everyday experiences into stories revealing the aspirations and values that have sustained Americans through good times and bad."

Mecklenburg noted that Rockwell once said if he hadn't become an illustrator, he would have gone into the movies.

Lucas has the oldest painting in the exhibition, taken from a 1917 Life magazine cover.

The exhibit will be coupled with video of the two filmmakers discussing the artist, who died in 1978. Spielberg and Lucas, long-time friends, have previously teamed up for screen collaborations, most notably the Indiana Jones film series.

Born in New York City in 1894, Rockwell served as a military artist during the First World War.

He painted his first cover for the Saturday Evening Post in 1916 and over a 47-year span, created 321 covers for the magazine.

His numerous well-known works include one of a fat and jolly Santa Claus, Rosie the Riveter from the Second World War and The Problem We All Live With — depicting Ruby Bridges, a young African American, walking past a wall defaced with racist epithets, flanked by federal marshals on the first day of desegregation in New Orleans.

"Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg" will run until Jan. 2, 2011.