In an unmistakably Rockwellian image, a dog and three fear-stricken boys flee, clutching pants and shirts, a ``No Swimming'' sign the only clue to their mischief.

Another image, a slick advertisement for a red 1941 Ford, vintage lines an ode to design, boasts: ``It's a Big New Car!''

From a Norman Rockwell retrospective coming Nov. 14 to the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale to Styled for the Road: The Art of Automobile Design, 1908 to 1948, opening at The Wolfsonian-FIU in Miami Beach in October, the season's visual-arts programming seems poised to reflect on the past, reaching for inspiration from icons of yesteryear.

American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell features more than 70 works from the Rockwell museum in Stockbridge, Mass. -- seminal oil paintings, Saturday Evening Post covers, preparatory sketches, and archival photographs and historical documents from an uncanny observer and chronicler of American culture.

The Wolfsonian show promises to be an engaging exploration of the role automobile design played in shaping this country during the tumultuous era that spanned the Roaring Twenties through the Great Depression and World War II.

Elsewhere, two strikingly different master artists will be honored with major shows:

George Segal, whose ground-breaking, life-size sculptures and signature tableaux made him one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century, will be exhibited at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. A re-installed Martin Z. Margulies Collection in Wynwood also will exhibit an evocative Segal bronze sculpture of men in a queue, Depression Bread Line.

Encamping at the Freedom Tower is the overdue retrospective Under a Brilliant Sun: Cundo Bermúdez into the 21st Century, which illustrates the mastery of the late Cuban artist. Bermúdez, who starred in the island's modernist movement of the 1940s and '50s, died in his Miami exile in 2008.

But in a difficult, cautious year for the arts, all eyes will be focused on the risk-takers: Art Basel Miami Beach is expanding its exhibition space at the Miami Beach Convention Center to give more breathing room to the fair's art projects and curated booths. In time for Basel, collectors Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz hope to open a three-story, 30,000-square-foot warehouse in the Design District to showcase their world-class collection.

In March, the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, which has an $18-million expansion pending, will present the first solo U.S. museum shows of Ceal Floyer and Cory Arcangel.

Pakistani-born, Berlin-based Floyer uses ordinary objects to create minimalist-construction tableaux that challenge the viewer's perceptions and assumptions. This mid-career survey by MOCA executive director and chief curator Bonnie Clearwater includes multimedia works from the late 1990s and debuts a site-specific work.

New York-based Arcangel, a pioneer in the use of digital technologies in art, will exhibit collaborations with other artists and musicians and create new works. A promising exhibition with Web components, the show is curated by MOCA's talented assistant curator Ruba Katrib.

The Miami Art Museum is presenting shows by artists whose works explore the nature of architecture -- Argentine Guillermo Kuitca and Portuguese Carlos Bunga. The Lowe Art Museum is exhibiting Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire from the Brooklyn Museum and the humorous glass creations of Ricky Bernstein, who depicts ``Americans who are overworked, overwhelmed and pressed for time.''

Sure to be one of the season's most affecting exhibitions will be William Kentridge: Five Themes, organized by the Norton with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The South African artist, recently heralded by Time magazine as one of the ``100 Most Influential People in the World,'' exhibits multimedia works that explore themes of imperialism, colonialism, apartheid, and other forms of social and cultural dysfunction. After its multi-city U.S. run, the exhibition embarks on a world tour of several European capitals, Australia and Abu Dhabi.

In the Wynwood Arts District, Miami artists continue to headline with solo shows, including some repeat performances. Most notably: Michael Vasquez and his paintings of urban characters at Fredric Snitzer Gallery and Javier Piñón at David Castillo Gallery with collages that poke ``rustic fun'' at the propaganda of classical and American mythologies. Gustavo Acosta and Carlos González unlock secret codes and flights of fancy at PanAmerican Art Projects, and Betty Rosado brings photography to the project rooms at Bernice Steinbaum Gallery.

In Coral Gables, the season opened at Cernuda Arte with From a Strange Town, a solo show by Vicente Hernández, who is billed on the elegant opening-night invitation as the first Cuban painter since 2004 to be issued a visitor's visa. Strange town, indeed.

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