|
NORMAN ROCKWELL AT THE NOTT
June 19 - July 30,1997
Football Hero,
cover for Saturday Evening Post, November 19, 1938
American
Idealism and Everyday Life
During a working
career of almost seventy years, Norman Rockwell worked for every
major magazine in the United States. He was commissioned to
paint portraits of major presidential candidates and public
personalities, as well as draw advertisements for the most
common consumer products. He also illustrated children's books
and American classics such as Mark Twain's, The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, creating for many the
definitive images of those two characters. But it was with the
Saturday Evening Post that Rockwell's name became
synonymous.
Rockwell's association with the Post started in 1916 and
lasted 47 years. The collaboration yielded 322 Saturday
Evening Post covers, all featured in this exhibit, as well
as numerous illustrations for stories and essays published in
the magazine. The most famous of these are the Four Freedoms,
inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 speech. The paintings,
completed and published in 1943, illustrate the basic freedoms
for which Americans were fighting - freedom of speech, freedom
of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Distinguished thinkers contributed essays on each of the
freedoms, but it was Rockwell's vision that was to find its
permanent place in America's image of herself.
Rockwell's continuous appeal may in part be traced to his
mastery of his medium-his economy of line, handling of paint,
and what many painters see as astonishing understanding of
light. His most obvious strength, however, lies in his choice of
subject matter. He painted the American people, their ideals and
family values, expressed through simple, everyday scenes.
Over the decades, Rockwell chronicled not only small-town
America, but social changes and political challenges as well.
That he chose to do this through a language of optimism, hope
and pride, has often inspired bitter criticism and accusations
of inappropriate idealism. However, those are precisely the
qualities in Rockwell's work that continue to hold our
fascination and move us to examine and re-examine our values,
true or imagined. His images will always be irresistible in
their power to at once comfort and provoke.
Slim Finnegan, "We did everything
we could to get ready not to
get stubbed", story illustration for
Saturday Evening Post, July 8, 1916
|
