American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell

496 Pages·2014·7.95 MB·English

by  Deborah Solomon

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FOR THE BOYS—KENT, ELI, AND LEO SEPKOWITZ
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the
mirror that reflects it.
—Edith Wharton
CONTENTS
Frontispiece
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Welcome to Rockwell Land
1. The Bird Man of Yonkers (1830 to 1888)
2. Not a Norman Rockwell Childhood (1894 to 1911)
3. The Art Students League (September 1911 to 1912)
4. The Boy Scouts Versus the Armory Show (September 1912 to December
1913)
5. New Rochelle, Art Capital of the World (1914 to 1916)
6. Irene O’Connor, or Uncle Sam Wants You (1916 to 1918)
7. Billy Payne (May 1919 to Summer 1920)
8. Miss America (1922 to 1923)
9. The Arrow Collar Man (1924 to 1925)
10. Divorce (1926 to 1929)
11. Mary Barstow (Spring 1930 to September 1932)
12. The New Deal (1933 to 1935)
13. Hello Life (Fall 1936 to 1938)
14. Arlington, Vermont (November 1938 to Summer 1942)
15. The Four Freedoms (May 1942 to May 1943)
16. “Slowly Fell the Picket Fence” (June 1943 to Summer 1947)
17. “We’re Looking for People Who Like to Draw” (October 1948)
18. Grandma Moses (1948 to 1949)
19. Shuffleton’s Barbershop (1950 to 1953)
20. The Age of Erik Erikson (1954)
21. Crack-Up (1955)
22. Young Man Luther (1957 to 1959)
23. Rockwell Tells His Life Story (1959)
24. Widowhood, or The Golden Rule (1960)
25. Meet Molly (1961)
26. Rockwell Departs from the Post (1962 to 1963)
27. Ruby Bridges (1964)
28. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Art Critic (1964 to 1967)
29. The Vietnam War (1965 to 1967)
30. Alice’s Restaurant (1967)
31. Andy Warhol & Company (Fall 1968)
32. The Brooklyn Museum (1969 to 1972)
33. “But I Want to Go to My Studio” (1972 to 1978)
Photo Insert
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Also by Deborah Solomon
A Note About the Author
Copyright
Endpapers
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Endpapers: Rockwell’s letter to his assistant Franklin Lischke (Norman Rockwell
Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts)
Triple Self-Portrait, 1961 (Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts)
Rockwell wrote out this joke about an elephant and gave it to a psychiatrist.
Rockwell wondered if he inherited his drawing skill from his grandfather,
Howard Hill, creator of Family of Grouse in a Landscape.
Mary Ann Rockwell, the artist’s mother, later known as Nancy
Norman and his older brother, Jarvis, display frogs caught during one of their
summers in Warwick, New York. Although Norman was taller than Jarvis, he
claimed to feel physically outmatched by him.
George Bridgman’s drawing class at the Art Students League in the fall of 1912
(Courtesy of the Art Students League of New York)
This charcoal drawing remains Rockwell’s earliest known work. He intended it
as an illustration of a scene in Oliver Goldsmith’s poem “The Deserted Village.”
(Courtesy of the Art Students League of New York)
Rockwell’s first published book illustration showed the explorer Samuel de
Champlain on the rocks of Quebec.
With its striped swimming trunks and cropped legs, Rockwell’s Boys’ Life cover,
from August 1915, strips away moldy detail in favor of modern spareness.
(Courtesy of the National Scouting Museum, Irving, Texas)
A scout named Gailey is ridiculed for bringing pink pajamas to camp in this
1913 illustration, which Rockwell drew for Edward Cave’s Boy Scout Camp
Book.
The illustrator Charles Dana Gibson specialized in images of busty women with
big hair.
The Magic Football (“I thought you were wrong”) ran as a story illustration in
St. Nicholas, the best of the children’s magazines, in December 1914. The
medium is oil on canvas en grisaille.
James Montgomery Flagg inserted his own face into his portrait of Uncle Sam in
his Army recruiting poster of 1916. He was influenced by the British poster of
Lord Kitchener created by Alfred Leete.
The Clubhouse Examination, 1917, riffed on James Montgomery Flagg’s
recruiting poster.
During his stint in the Navy, Rockwell received permission to continue painting
magazine covers—so long as he portrayed sailors.
Billy Payne’s best friend, Eddie Carson, posed for a Boy Scouts recruiting
poster, which also ran as the cover of the July 1919 issue of Boys’ Life. (Courtesy of
the National Scouting Museum, Irving, Texas)
Rockwell poses with his model Billy Payne, circa 1917.
Boy with Dog in Picnic Basket ran on the May 15, 1920, cover of The Saturday
Evening Post and amounts to a tender elegy for a boy who fell to his death.
Rockwell dressed up as a Spanish matador for a costume party in April 1920,
with his wife, Irene. (Photograph by Paul Thompson)
Irene Rockwell seldom modeled for Rockwell and made one of her few
appearances on the cover of a 1921 issue of The Literary Digest.
No Swimming, 1921: One of Rockwell’s most famous paintings has less to do
with putting on a costume than taking it off.
The Arrow Collar Man, as created by J. C. Leyendecker, was selling not just a
shirt but the promise of urban sophistication. This advertisement appeared in
1912.
On a visit to Clyde Forsythe in Southern California, Rockwell is introduced to
the actor Charles “Buddy” Rogers, a silent film star. (Norman Rockwell Museum,
Stockbridge, Massachusetts)
Doctor and Doll, 1929, acknowledges Rockwell’s affection for Rembrandt’s
Anatomy Lesson. (Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts)
Norman and Mary in Los Angeles, on March 19, 1930, the day they applied for a