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Rockwell GG Fin
Rockwell GG Fin
The Art of
Norman
Rockwell
America’s most prominent twentieth-century illustrator, Norman
Rockwell (1894–1978) worked within the realm of both aesthetics and
commerce. An astute visual storyteller and a masterful painter with a
distinct, personal message to convey, he constructed fictional realities that
offered a compelling picture of a life to which many Americans aspired.
Anxiously awaited and immediately understood, his seamless narratives
seemed to assure reader engagement with the many publications that
commissioned his work ―from the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies’ Home
Journal, and Boys’ Life to Look, which featured his most powerful
assertions on the social issues of his day. The complexities of artistic
production remained hidden to his enthusiasts, who were compelled by
his vision and content to enjoy his art in the primary form for which it was
intended. What came between the first spark of an idea and a published
Rockwell image was anyone’s guess, and far more than his public would
have ever imagined.
Images for a
Changing World
In the 1960s, leaving behind his beloved story-telling scenes, Rockwell threw
himself into a new genre—the documentation of social issues. He had
always wanted to make a difference, and as a highly marketable illustrator,
he had the opportunity to do so. Humor and pathos, traits that made his
Saturday Evening Post covers successful, were not needed for telling the
story of life in 1960s America. The textures and colors once used to weave
his lighthearted yarns were replaced by a direct, pared down, reportorial
style more appropriate for magazine editorials.
In the years that followed, Rockwell reported on civil rights issues and on
the space race, depicting the moon landing before and after it actually
happened. The artist’s 1963 painting, The Problem We All Live With
Fig. 6 (fig. 7), gently presents an assertion on moral decency. Inspired by
young Ruby Bridges’s story, his first assignment for Look magazine
One of Rockwell’s most evocative images, Girl at Mirror (1954, fig. 6) is
was an illustration of a six-year-old African American schoolgirl being
a poignant reflection on life’s transition from childhood to adolescence, a
escorted by four U.S. Marshals to her first day at an all-white school in
transition that everyone experiences and understands. Youth is not quite
New Orleans.
left behind for this young lady, whose doll is cast aside but still close at hand.
Rockwell commented that he regretted adding the magazine opened to a Ordered to proceed with school desegregation after the 1954 Brown
picture of actress Jane Russell, seen in the girl’s lap, for he felt that it dated v. Board of Education ruling, Louisiana lagged behind until pressure
the painting too specifically. The artist auditioned at least three other models from Federal Judge Skelly Wright forced the school board to begin
before selecting Mary Whalen for Girl at Mirror, who recalled, “there was a desegregation on November 14, 1960. Rockwell’s focus on the brave
little stool I sat on and he told me what to do. He might have made a
About
Norman Rockwell
Museum
Located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Norman
Rockwell’s hometown for twenty-five years, the
Norman Rockwell Museum holds the largest and
most significant collection of art and archival materials
relating to the life and work of Norman Rockwell. The
Fig. 7
Museum also preserves, interprets, and exhibits a
girl, undeterred by the taunts of an unseen crowd, humanized the subject growing collection of original illustration art by noted
for many Americans. In seeing the published piece, one Florida reader American illustrators, from historical to contemporary.
wrote, “Rockwell’s picture is worth a thousand words…. I am saving The Museum’s collections are a comprehensive
this issue for my children with the hope that by the time they become resource relating to Norman Rockwell and the art of
old enough to comprehend its meaning, the subject will have become illustration, the role of published imagery in society, and
history.” America in the twentieth century.
Illustrations: Cover and figure 8: Triple Self-Portrait. Cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, February 13, 1960. © 1960:
SEPS. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections; Figure 1: Beanie. Kellogg Company Corn Flakes advertisement, 1954.© Norman Rockwell
Family Agency. All rights reserved. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections; Figure 2: Daniel Boone, Pioneer Scout. Story Illustration
for Boys’ Life, July 1914. © Norman Rockwell Family Agency. All rights reserved. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections; Figure 3:
Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. Story illustration for Look, December 29, 1970.© Norman Rockwell Family Agency. All rights reserved.
Norman Rockwell Museum Collections; Figure 4.1: Art Critic. Cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, April 16, 1955. © 1955:
SEPS. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections; Figure 4.2: Photographer Bill Scovill. Photograph of Mary Rockwell for Art Critic. Cover
illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, April 16, 1955. © Norman Rockwell Family Agency. All rights reserved. Norman Rockwell
Museum Collections; Figure 4.3: Study for Art Critic. Cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, April 16, 1955. © Norman Rockwell
Family Agency. All rights reserved; Figure 5: Artist Facing Blank Canvas (The Deadline). Cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post,
October 8, 1938. © 1938: SEPS. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections; Figure 6: Girl at Mirror. Cover illustration for The Saturday
Evening Post, March 6, 1954. © 1954: SEPS. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections; Figure 7: The Problem We All Live With. Story
illustration for Look, January 14, 1964.© Norman Rockwell Family Agency. All rights reserved. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections
Fig. 8
American Chronicles: The Art of
Norman Rockwell
November 1, 2013–February 9, 2014
Frist Center for the Visual Arts
American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell has been organized by the
Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
This exhibition is made possible with generous support from the National Endowment for
the Arts, American Masterpieces Program; the Henry Luce Foundation; Curtis Publishing Co.;
Norman Rockwell Family Agency; and the Stockman Family Foundation.
Hospitality Sponsor:
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts gratefully acknowledges our
Picasso Circle Members as Exhibition Patrons.
This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council
on the Arts and the Humanities.
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts is supported in part by: