Norman Rockwell
 The second child of Jarvis Waring Rockwell and his wife Nancy, Norman Perceval Rockwell was born in New York City, in a decrepit brownstone on the upper West Side of Manhattan. As a young child, he enjoyed idyllic summer sin the country, an experience that remained with him for the remainder of his life and one that had a profound impact on his later choice of iconography.
In 1908 Norman began commuting to New York from Mamaroneck, Westchester County where the family had moved 5 years earlier. He studied at the Chase School of Fine and Applied Art and at the age of fifteen he quit high school to enroll in classes at the National Academy of Design. He left a year later after determining the Academy's curriculum was geared towards the fine artist rather than the illustrator and began at the Art Students League, studying anatomy under George Bridgeman and illustration with Tom Fogarty. In addition to honing his skills in drawing and painting the figure, Rockwell was introduced to the illustration work of Howard Pyle, whose emphasis on historical themes as well sa his penchant for detail and accuracy, exerted a profound influence on the young artist.
In 1911, Rockwell illustrated his first book Tell-Me-Why Stores by C. H. Claudy. Two years later he contributed the first of any illustrations to Boy's Life, going on to become art director of that magazine soon after. Commissions for other children's periodicals followed.
In 1915, Rockwell moved with his family to New Rochelle, New York, an artist's colony and home to many of America's finest illustrators, including Howard Chandler Christy and Charles Dana Gibson. Sharing sculptor Frederic Remington's old studio with cartoonist Clyde Forsythe, he coninued to study the work of old illustrators such as Pyle while painting crisp renditions of fresh-faced kids and dogs.
A turning point in Rockwell's career occurred a year later when he sold five cover illustrations to George Horace Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening Post. For the next four decades, Rockwell's name would become synonymous with the Post. Indeed, during that perioud he produced 322 covers for the magazine, the most acclaimed of which was his Thanksgivng Saying Grace illustration, which appeared in the November 24, 1951 issue. His superbly crafted, tropical, and often witty portrayals of everyday Americans propelled him into the public spotlight and earned him national reputation.
Rockwell served in the navy during 1917-18, spending much of his time painting official portraits while doing illustration work for various magazines. He continued his prolific activity until 1923, when he went to Paris to try his hand at modern art.
He enrolled briefly at the Academie Colarossi and spent much of his time studying the work of vanguard painters such as Picasso and Matisse. Although he eventually resumed the style of representational realism that contributed to his immense popularity, Rockwell continued to take an interest in contemporary art throughout his career. He traveled to Europe again in 1927, 1932, and 1938 familiarizing himself with the latest developments in the art world. He often incorporated modern spatial devices into his work and even produced his versions of Jackson Pollock's drip paintings around 1962.
In addition to resuming his illustration work, he executed major book commissions that included a new edition of Tom Sawyer and a biography of Louisa May Alcott. He also painted murals and designed Christmas cards and posters for the motion picture industry, the War department, and consumer products.
Rockwell moved to Arlington, Vermont in 1939. He remained until 1953, when he settled in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, his home for the remainder of his life. During the final phase of his career, his art took a new direction. Moving away from nostalgic subjects of the past, he depicted contemporary people and events for Look magazine, often exploring issues relating to politics, school integration, racism and America's space program.
Despite his remarkable success and the enormous appeal of his work, Rockwell attracted little attention from art historians during his day. The first monograph on the illustrator was published in 1946 and prior to his death in 1978 there were only a few exhibitions and scholarly analysis of Rockwell's work. Many of these viewed him as an old fashioned frealist and his art as overly sentimental.
However, in the wake of his death, scholars have begun to re-assess Rockwell's contribution, linking him to a venerable tradition of genre painting that harks back to the Old Masters. The most comprehensive collection of his work can be found at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.
|
