Norman Rockwell

Norman Percevel Rockwell (New York, February 3, 1894-Stockbridge, Massachusetts, November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His work enjoys wide popularity in his country, given its reflection of American culture. Rockwell is best known for the slice-of-life cover illustrations he created for the Saturday Evening Post over five decades. Among Rockwell's best-known works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter, The problem we all live with and the series Four Freedoms. Also notable is his 64-year relationship with the Boy Scouts of America association, during which he produced covers for Boys' magazine. Life, calendars and other illustrations.

Rockwell was a prolific artist who produced more than 4,000 original works during his lifetime. Most of his surviving works are in public collections. Rockwell also illustrated more than 40 books, including Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, in addition to painting the portraits of American presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, as well as those of figures such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Judy Garland and Colonel Sanders in 1973. He also created artwork for advertisements for Coca-Cola, Jell-O, General Motors and other companies. The rest of his work consists of illustrations for brochures, catalogues, posters (particularly for films), sheet music, stamps, playing cards and murals.

Rockwell's work was underappreciated as serious art during his lifetime. Much of his work was accused of being “too corny” by modern critics, especially the covers of the Saturday Evening Post, which tend toward idealistic or sentimental representations of American life. Consequently, Rockwell is not considered a "serious painter" in general by contemporary artists, who see his work as bourgeois and kitsch. The writer Vladimir Nabokov stated that Rockwell used his "brilliant technique" in a "banal" way, and wrote in his novel Pnin: "Dalí is really Norman Rockwell's twin brother kidnapped by gypsies when he was a child." Some Critics call him "illustrator" instead of artist, a designation that did not bother him, since that is what he called himself.

In his later years, however, Rockwell began to receive more attention in the United States as a painter thanks to his treatment of more serious themes, such as his series on racism for Look magazine. An example of this more serious work is The problem we all experience, which addressed the issue of school racial integration. The painting shows a young black woman, Ruby Bridges, flanked by white federal marshals, walking to school past a wall defaced with racist graffiti. This 1964 painting was displayed in the White House when Bridges met with President Barack Obama in 2011.

Biography

Early years

Norman Rockwell was born on February 3, 1894 in New York City, son of Jarvis Waring Rockwell and Anne Mary "Nancy" Rockwell, born Hill. Her father was a Presbyterian and her mother an Episcopalian; two years after their engagement, she converted to the Episcopal faith. Her first American ancestor was John Rockwell (1588-1662), of Somerset, England., who emigrated to colonial North America, probably in 1635, aboard the ship Hopewell and became one of the first settlers of Windsor, Connecticut.

Rockwell transferred from high school to Chase Art School at the age of 14. He then went on to the National Academy of Design and finally to the Art Students League. There, he was taught by Thomas Fogarty, George Bridgman and Frank Vincent DuMond; his early works were produced for St. Nicholas Magazine, the Boys' Lifeof the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), and other youth publications. His first major artistic work came at age 18, illustrating Carl H. Claudy's book Tell Me Why: Stories about Mother Nature.

Later, Rockwell was hired as a staff artist on Boys' Life. He received $50 each month for a complete cover and set of story illustrations. It is said that it was his first paid job as an artist. At 19, he became the art editor ofBoys & # 39; Life, a position he held for three years, during which he painted several covers, beginning with his first published magazine cover, Explorer at the Helm of a Ship, which appeared in the issue of September 1913from Boys' Life.

Collaboration with the Saturday Evening Post

Rockwell's family moved to New Rochelle, New York, when Norman was 21 years old. They shared a studio with the cartoonist Clyde Forsythe, who worked for The Saturday Evening Post. With Forsythe's help, Rockwell submitted his first successful cover to the Post in 1916, titled Mother's Day Off. He followed that success with Circus Barker and Strongman (released June 3), Gramps at the Plate (August 5), Redhead Loves Hatty Perkins (September 16), People in a Theater Balcony (October 14) and Man Playing Santa (December 9). Rockwell was featured eight times on the Post's cover in its first year. Ultimately, Rockwell published 323 original covers for The Saturday Evening Post over 47 years.

Rockwell's success on the cover of Post led him to publish covers of other magazines of the time, including Literary Digest, Country Gentleman, Leslie's Weekly, Peoples Popular Monthly and Life.

When Rockwell began his time with The Saturday Evening Post in 1916, he left his salaried position at Boys' Life, but continued to include scouts in its cover images of the Post and in the monthly magazine of the American Red Cross. He resumed his work with the Boy Scouts of America in 1926 with the production of the first of fifty-one original illustrations for the association's official annual calendar.

During World War I, he tried to enlist in the US Navy, but was denied entry because his weight of 140 pounds was too low for someone 6 feet tall. To solve the problem, he spent a night gorging himself on bananas, liquids and donuts, and weighed enough to enlist the next day. However, he was assigned the role of military artist and did not see any action during his tour of duty.

World War II

In 1943, during World War II, Rockwell painted the series Four Freedoms, which was completed in seven months. The series was inspired by a speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt, where the president described and articulated four freedoms for universal rights. The series includes the works Freedom from Want, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship and Freedom from Fear.

The paintings were published in 1943 in The Saturday Evening Post. Rockwell used a shipbuilding family from Brunswick, Maine, as models for two of the paintings, Freedom from Want and A Thankful Mother, and combined models from photographs and his own imagination to create these idealistic paintings. The United States Department of the Treasury later promoted war bonds by displaying the originals in sixteen cities. Rockwell considered Freedom of Speech to be the best of the four paintings.

That same year, a fire in his studio destroyed numerous original paintings, costumes and accessories. Because the period costumes and props were irreplaceable, the fire divided his career into two phases, since after the incident he passed to represent more modern characters and situations. Rockwell was contacted by writer Elliott Caplin, brother of cartoonist Al Capp, with the suggestion that the three should do a daily comic strip together; Caplin and his brother writing and Rockwell drawing. However, the project was aborted, as the perfectionist Rockwell could not deliver the material as quickly as was required for a daily strip.

Late career

In the late 1940s, Norman Rockwell spent the winter months as an artist-in-residence at Otis College of Art and Design, whose students occasionally served as models for his Saturday Evening Post covers. In 1949, Rockwell donated an original Post cover, April Fool, for a library fundraising raffle.

In 1959, after his wife Mary died suddenly of a heart attack, Rockwell took a break from his work due to grief. It was during that break that he and his son Thomas produced Rockwell's autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator, published in 1960. The Post printed excerpts from the book in eight consecutive editions, the first accompanied by his famous Triple Self-Portrait.

In 1969, as a tribute to the 75th anniversary of Rockwell's birth, officials at Brown & Bigelow and the Boy Scouts of America asked him to pose for Beyond the Easel, that year's calendar illustration. The same year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation commissioned him to paint the Easel Dam. Glen Canyon.

His last commission for the Boy Scouts of America was a calendar illustration titled The Spirit of 1976, which he completed when he was 82, concluding a partnership that generated 471 images for periodicals, guides, calendars and promotional materials. His connection with the BSA spanned 64 years, making it the longest professional association of his career.

In 1977, President Gerald Ford awarded Rockwell the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America's highest civilian honor, for his "vivid and affectionate portraits of our country." Rockwell's son, Jarvis, accepted the award.

Death

Rockwell died on November 8, 1978 of emphysema at the age of 84 at his home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. First Lady Rosalynn Carter attended his funeral.

Personal life

Rockwell married his first wife, Irene O'Connor, on July 1, 1916. Irene was Rockwell's model in the painting Mother Tucking Children into Bed, published in the cover of Literary Digest on January 19, 1921. The couple divorced on January 13, 1930.

Depressed, he briefly moved to Alhambra, California as a guest of his old friend Clyde Forsythe. There he painted some of his best-known paintings, among them The Doctor and the Doll. While there, he met and married schoolteacher Mary Barstow on April 17, 1930. The couple returned to New York shortly after their marriage. They had three children: Jarvis Waring, Thomas Rhodes and Peter Barstow. The family lived at 24 Lord Kitchener Road in the Bonnie Crest neighborhood of New Rochelle, New York.

Rockwell and his wife did not regularly attend church, although they were members of St. John's Wilmot Church, an Episcopal church near their home, where their children were baptized. Rockwell moved to Arlington, Vermont, in 1939, where his work began to reflect small town life.

In 1953, the Rockwell family moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, so that his wife could be treated at the Austen Riggs Center, a psychiatric hospital at 25 Main Street, near where Rockwell set up his studio. Rockwell also received treatment. psychiatric hospital, seeing analyst Erik Erikson, who was part of the hospital staff. Erikson told biographer Laura Claridge that Rockwell painted her happiness, but did not live it. On August 25, 1959, Mary died unexpectedly of a heart attack.

Rockwell married his third wife, retired English teacher Mary Leete "Mollie" Punderson (1896–1985), 25 October 1961. His studio in Stockbridge was located on the second floor of a row of buildings. Directly below Rockwell's studio was, for a time in 1966, the Back Room Rest, better known as "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie's satirical song. During his time in Stockbridge, Police Chief William Obanhein was a frequent model for Rockwell's paintings.

From 1961 until his death, Rockwell was a member of the Monday Evening Club, a men's literary group based in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. At his funeral, five members of the club served as pallbearers, along with Jarvis Rockwell.

Legacy

An escrow of his original paintings and drawings was established with Rockwell's help near his home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the Norman Rockwell Museum is currently open 365 a year. The museum's collection includes more than 700 paintings, Rockwell's original drawings and studies. The Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies at the Norman Rockwell Museum is a national research institute dedicated to the art of American illustration.

Rockwell's work was exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2001. Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties sold for $15.4 million at a Sotheby's auction; s in 2006. A 12-city American tour of Rockwell's works took place in 2008. In 2008, Rockwell was named official state artist of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The sale of Saying Grace i> in 2013 for $46 million it set a new record price for Rockwell.

In popular culture

• In 1981, Rockwell's painting Girl at Mirror was used for the cover of Prism's fifth studio album, Small Change.
• In the movie Empire of the Sun, a child (interpreted by Christian Bale) is knelt in bed by his loving parents in a scene inspired by a Rockwell painting, a reproduction of which the child retains during his captivity in a prisoner camp (Freedom from Fear1943).
• The 1994 film Forrest Gump includes a shot at a school that recreates Rockwell's "Girl with Black Eye" with young Forrest instead of the girl. Much of the visual style of the film was inspired by Rockwell's art.
• Film director George Lucas owns the original The Peach Crop by Rockwell and his colleague Steven Spielberg has a sketch of Triple self-portrait Rockwell. Each of the works of art hangs in the workspace of the respective filmmaker. Rockwell is a main character in an episode of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones by Lucas, "Passion for Life", where it is interpreted by Lukas Haas.
• On an anniversary of the birth of Norman Rockwell, on February 3, 2010, Google presented Rockwell's iconic image "Children and girl looking at the moon", which is also known as "Puppie Love", on its homepage. The answer was so great that day that the Norman Rockwell Museum servers were overwhelmed by the volume of traffic.^{[chuckles]required]}
• "Dreamland", an album track Burn (2009) of the Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace, was inspired by Rockwell's paintings.
• The cover of the album by Oingo Boingo Only to Lad is a parody of the cover of the official Boy Scouts of America manual of 1960, illustrated by Rockwell.
• Lana Del Rey named her sixth studio album Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019), adopting for the cover the visual style of the painter.

Important jobs

• Boy and baby cart (1916)
• Circo Barker and forzudo (1916)
• Grandparents to beat (1916)
• Redhead loves Hatty Perkins (1916)
• In a theater box (1916)
• Cousin Reginald goes to the field. (1917)
• Santa and the Expense Book (1920)
• Mother kneeling the children in bed (1921)
• No swimming (1921)
• The Spooners or Sunset (1926)
• All four freedoms (1943)
• Freedom of expression (1943)
• Freedom of worship (1943)
• Freedom to live without hardship (1943)
• Freedom to live without fear (1943)
• Rosie the mackerel (1943)
• Going and coming (1947)
• Lower part of the sixth or the three arbitrators (1949)
• Thank you (1951)
• Walking to church (1952)
• The purple eye or outside the director's office (1953)
• Girl in the mirror (1954)
• Breaking ties with home (1954)
• Marriage leave (1955)
• Chief scout (1956)
• The rookie (1957)
• Triple self-portrait (1960)
• The Golden Rule (1961)
• Understanding (1962)
• The problem with which we all live (1964)
• Southern justice (Assasination in Mississippi) (1965)
• New kids in the neighborhood or moving (1967)
• Russian School (1967)
• The spirit of 1976 (1976; stolen in 1978, recovered by the FBI in 2001)

Sources

Claridge, Laura P. (2001). Norman Rockwell: A Life. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-50453-2.