When Norman Rockwell died in 1978, Time Magazine art critic Robert Hughes briefly discussed the artist’s place in American art. Hughes acknowledged that Rockwell in his last years had moved beyond the soda-fountain-American-flag-and-Mom’s-apple-pie subject matter that had made him a household name over the years in which his illustrations regularly appeared on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post and other publications. Rockwell’s world view had darkened in the 1960’s. His later works had dealt with school desegregation and with the murder of civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.
“But these did not represent the essential Rockwell as far as his public was concerned,” wrote Hughes. “What they wanted was a friendly world, shielded from the calamities of history and the endemic doubts that are the modernist heritage, set down in detail, painted as an honest grocer weighs ham, slice by slice, nothing skimped; and Norman Rockwell gave it to them for 60 years. He never made an impression on the history of art, and never will. But on the history of illustration and mass communication his mark was deep, and will remain indelible.”
So things seemed in 1978, at least to one important critic. But the art world was already changing. The modernist paradigm had proved unsustainable – I mean, after you’ve pared everything down to Minimalism, what else is there to do? – and a move back to figuration was already underway. Pop Art had brought back the figure, albeit in an ironic fashion, with artists such as Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist using images and painting techniques derived directly from what had hitherto been dismissed as “commercial art.” Photorealists used recognizable subject matter. Where did Rockwell fit into all this?
I’ve been musing about this ever since Roberta and I visited the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a couple of weeks ago. No matter what art criticism has said about Rockwell, the people have spoken. He is an indelible part of contemporary culture. How many other museums devoted to the work of a single artist draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each year? The only one that readily comes to mind is the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. Salvador Dali, about whom I have written elsewhere, is another artist whose work is seemingly impervious to negative criticism.
Whatever art critics have said, the art market takes Rockwell extremely seriously. 71 of his works have sold at auction for over $1,000,000, with the record being held by “Saying Grace,” which sold for $46,084,000 eleven years ago.
