Norman Rockwell exhibit more stark than sweet

Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With" shows an African-American girl being escorted to school by U.S. marshals

June 14, 2000
Web posted at: 9:43 AM EDT (1343 GMT)

In this story: First comprehensive exhibit Artist disdained by some critics RELATED STORIES, SITES

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Murder, a moon landing, and a cartoonish self-portrait of the artist painting a picture from his coffin: this is Norman Rockwell?

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A new show of the iconic American illustrator's work has the old Americana favorites but also features pieces that are more stark than sweet: "The Problem We All Live With" shows an African-American girl being escorted to school by U.S. marshals, while "Murder in Mississippi" evokes the killing of three civil rights workers, in sepia tones with the only bright co lour the smears of blood on the victims.

The classics are there too: the bountiful Thanksgiving dinner, the thoughtful young girl at her mirror, the runaway boy at a diner seated near an indulgent cop and a counterman.

Beyond the works associated with Rockwell's homespun, small-town vision of American life -- "Freedom from Want," "Girl at Mirror" and "The Runaway" for three examples -- there are seldom-seen pieces, including "The Final Impossibility (Two Men on the Moon) 1969" and "Strictly a Sharpshooter," a broad canvas showing the end of a violent prize-fight, with a woman, plainly up to no good, in the foreground.

Spanning most of the 20th century, the range of Rockwell's work gives a record of his place and time in the exhibit set to open on Saturday, running through September 24, at the Corcoran Museum of Art.

The Corcoran, a short walk from the White House, is the third stop on the Rockwell tour after Atlanta and Chicago, with future exhibits set for San Diego, Phoenix, the Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, ending in March 2002.

Called "Pictures for the American People," this show is billed as the first comprehensive exhibit of Rockwell's work and displays more than 70 oil paintings and all 322 of his covers for the Saturday Evening Post magazine.

Rockwell's "Christmas Homecoming"

Rockwell, who died in 1978 at the age of 84, broke away from purely upbeat covers in the 1960s, according to Maureen Hart Hennessey, chief curator of the Rockwell museum in Stockbridge.

In the mid-1960s, Rockwell talked about a "change in the thought climate of America" and said he was "wildly interested in covering contemporary issues: the Peace Corps, civil rights, the space race and he found it very exciting," Hennessey said in an interview at a media preview on Tuesday.

Despite this new direction, Rockwell retained his ability to capture moments in American life and tell stories with his art.

Rockwell's illustrations first saw print in 1911, and included work for Boys Life magazine, advertisements for such products as Sun-maid fruits and Swiss watches, magazine covers and promotions for the government.

The most famous of promotions was probably the series "Four Freedoms," Rockwell's 1943 response to the Second World War, which was sent on a 16-city tour to promote the sale of war bonds.

He also did celebrity portraits of figures ranging from Dwight Eisenhower to John Wayne to Bob Hope. The first time he painted an election was in 1920, the first time women could vote in federal balloting. The last was in 1972, when he did portraits of Richard Nixon and George McGovern and their wives.

Rockwell, who enjoyed popularity with the American masses but was often disdained as a hopeless cornball by art critics, was not above poking fun at himself and his long-running fame.

In a sort of satire of one of his best-known paintings, a self-portrait called "Artist Facing Blank Canvas (Deadline)," Rockwell drew a cartoon entitled "Norman Rockwell, Illustrator from Cradle to Grave."

This 1946 line-drawing shows five Rockwells, starting with a diapered infant at the easel, painting a primitive face, to an old man leaning up from his coffin to portray himself in the cubist imagery of more modern art.

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Touring exhibit promotes Rockwell revival
January 19, 2000

Corcoran Museum of Art
Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge
Guggenheim Museum

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