The David Owsley Museum of Art (DOMA) at Ball State University will showcase a special exhibition of work by award-winning illustrator Nora Krug from Feb. 19–Jun. 13, 2026. Nora Krug: Belonging features more than 200 original drawings and paintings, along with historical artifacts, letters, photographs, and personal items that inspired the artist’s work.
The exhibition was organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., and curated by Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, chief curator.
DOMA will also host a public talk by Ms. Krug at 7 p.m., March 11, in Sursa Performance Hall. During the lecture, she will discuss her illustration work, her award-winning visual memoir, Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home, and the exhibition. The event is free and open to the public and will include a book signing and an opportunity to purchase books. Visit DOMA’s website for information and to plan your visit.
“It’s been a pleasure to work with artist Nora Krug, curator Stephanie Plunkett, and the team at the Norman Rockwell Museum to bring Nora’s brilliant illustration art to the Midwest,” said Dr. Robert La France, DOMA’s director. “At DOMA, we display the material in two areas accompanied by videos that provide context, interviews, and demonstrations. In addition, Nora Krug is coming to campus, and everyone will have a chance to engage with the author, her illustration art, and the ideas in her books.”
The exhibition draws from Ms. Krug’s Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home and her more recent illustrated edition of Yale historian Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Her work blends personal experience with deep historical research, incorporating museum artifacts and flea market finds, vintage photography, oral histories, and personal conversations to examine how individuals and societies reckon with the past.
Ms. Krug’s Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home was named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, The Guardian, National Public Radio, and Kirkus Reviews. The book also received the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, an Art Directors Club gold cube, a Society of Illustrators silver medal, and the British Book Design and Production Award. Ms. Krug was named the Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year and received the 2019 Book Illustration Prize from London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
A German American author and illustrator, Ms. Krug’s visual narratives have appeared in outlets including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, and A Public Space, as well as in anthologies published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Simon & Schuster, and Chronicle Books, among others.
Additional information about Nora Krug is available online.
DOMA is located at 2021 W. Riverside Ave., in Ball State’s Fine Arts Building. It is open to the public from 9 a.m.–4:30 p.m. on Tuesdays through Fridays, and 1:30–4:30 p.m. on Saturdays. There is no admission fee. DOMA will be closed to the public Feb. 28–March 9 for Ball State’s Spring Break.
Nora Krug, Girl and Families:
Nora Krug, Girl and Families, 2021, Illustration for On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder, Ten Speed Press, 2021. Pencil and watercolor on paper, Collection of Nora Krug ©2021 Nora Krug
Nora Krug Hand with Heart:
Nora Krug, Hand with Heart, 2021, Illustration for On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder, Ten Speed Press, 2021. Mixed media and collage on paper, Collection of Nora Krug ©2021 Nora Krug
Nora Krug Skeleton Man:
Nora Krug, Skeleton Man, 2021, Illustration for On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder, Ten Speed Press, 2021. Mixed media and collage on paper, Collection of Nora Krug ©2021 Nora Krug