Norman Rockwell

Interesting subject matter but the author obviously believes that if a point is worth making, it's worth making at least half a dozen times, and subscribes to the 'why use three words when ten will do' school of writing.

This is the best Rockwell bio I've read so far. It is the story of a true "tortured genius".I was lucky enough to have met Norman Rockwell in person in 1961. Though I was not quite 6,I still remember the illustration that was in progress on his easel...a cheerleader in various action posesagainst a white background...later to be a Saturday Evening Post cover that year.This book rounds out my understanding of Rockwell...humanizing (but not diminishing) this artistic legend.While the first few chapters were a little tedious (going into his ancestry), one he went to art school and beyond, I wasenthralled. I borrowed this book from a fellow artist...but decided to buy a copy of my own on Amazon.

This books gives good insight to the life and motivations of Norman Rockwell. It has good photographs of his work as well.

This is so well written, such a pleasure to read. One of my favorite artists from childhood, I learned so much about a wonderful human being. Definitely necessary if your a fan.

It's a big FAT book, which would be promising if it were packed full of vivid anecdotes and quotations from the principals' letters and diaries.But what it's packed with are the author's wordy surmises about what the principals must have been thinking. When she chooses to include contemporary commentary, she almost always has an opinion about what it REALLY meant (usually something Freudian.) When she quotes Rockwell himself, she frequently downgrades his statements as being inaccurate or untrue for one self-serving reason or another. Her descriptions of Rockwell seem to change in order to match whatever impression SHE has in mind at any given time: was he a hopelessly unattractive nerd/curmudgeon, or was he lithe and athletic and charming/seductive? Did he self-centeredly overlook his wife Mary's emotional needs, or hold her dear as the one valuable critical voice in his life? And speaking of criticism, the author takes a lot of the pleasure out of Rockwell's work with her opinionated, dismissive interpretations.And HOW MANY TIMES must we hear about the randy uncle who died of syphilis?I'm very disgruntled with the tone and the style of this book and recommend that you seek Rockwell information elsewhere.

Psychological as well as artistic portrait of Norman Rockwell that places his work in the context of his times. Not light reading. The author synthesizes a multitude of sources from art critics to family members and Rockwell's own biography to present a comprehensive study of his life and work. The result is an analysis both of the man and of the cultural ideals he rendered in visual form.