UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
Date: May 16, 2007
I, Kirstie Lane Kleopfer,
hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of:
Master of Arts
in:
Art History
It is entitled:
Norman Rockwell’s Civil Rights Paintings of the
1960s
This work and its defense approved by:
Chair: Theresa Leininger Miller, Ph.D.
Diane Mankin, Ph.D.
Juilee Decker, Ph.D.
Norman Rockwell’s Civil Rights Paintings of the 1960s
A thesis submitted to the
Division of Research and Advanced Studies
of the University of Cincinnati
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in the Department of Art History
of the School of Art
of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning
2007
by Kirstie Lane Kleopfer
B.A., Hanover College, 2003
Committee Chair: Dr. Theresa Leininger-Miller
Abstract
Norman Rockwell began working for Look magazine in 1964 because he wanted to
explore new subject matter and was frustrated with the limitations on subject matter imposed by
the Saturday Evening Post’s editors. Look editor Dan Mich would provide Rockwell with the
freedom to finally produce the “big pictures” that he had been forbidden to produce for the Post.
In this thesis I provide a deep analysis of the paintings Rockwell produced about the Civil Rights
Movement and the historical events which inspired them, revealing Rockwell’s passionate
critique of the American society he had so frequently idealized. Such images fulfilled what
Rockwell referred to as his “hankering after immortality.” They established a lasting legacy,
contributing to the momentum of the Civil Rights Movement and encouraging Americans to face
the racial prejudice that existed in their society. This study explores Rockwell’s depictions of
African Americans throughout his career and the evolution of his growing interest in promoting
racial tolerance and equality. Although Rockwell was originally considered a mere illustrator,
scholars are increasingly examining the artistic merit of his work and its influence on American
culture. In this thesis I provide background and insight about Rockwell's motivation to produce
such controversial and influential works such as The Problem We All Live With (1964), Southern
Justice (1965), and New Kids in the Neighborhood (1967).
Acknowledgements
This thesis could not have been possible without the assistance of many people. First, I
must thank Sue Craven for introducing me to the topic. Knowing I was an aspiring art historian,
she proudly shared her new coffee table book, Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American
People (1999), with me. As I flipped through its pages, I was very surprised to learn that
Rockwell had created paintings to promote the Civil Rights movement. The proverbial light
bulb immediately went off and I knew I had finally found my thesis topic after several months of
frustrating and disappointing research on a few other possible topics.
I am especially grateful to my significant other (and Sue’s grandson), Eric Craven, for his
unending patience, understanding, and love as I completed this study. He has sacrificed much
over the past eight months, never complaining that I had to spend so much time with another
man (Rockwell). His sense of humor kept me laughing when the stress got to be too much and I
greatly appreciated his willingness to listen. Friends Jennifer Saylor and Crystal Smith also have
been constant sources of encouragement, and their confidence in me was inspiring.
Sincere thanks go to my advisor at the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Theresa LeiningerMiller, for her superb editing, excellent advising, and constant guidance. Her enthusiasm for this
study was encouraging and reminded me of the value of this endeavor. Her courses, “The
Harlem Renaissance” and “African American Art, 1945-present,” contributed to my
understanding of the significance of Rockwell’s works and the history associated with them.
Committee member Dr. Juilee Decker of Georgetown College provided helpful editing and
insightful suggestions. I also thank Dr. Diane Mankin at the University of Cincinnati for serving
on my committee and taking an interest in my topic. My classmates and peer editors Katie
Landrigan, Nancy McGowan, Jonathan Nolting, and Laura Partridge offered honest and
thoughtful opinions and advice for the development of chapter two. I am especially indebted to
Katie for her friendship, emotional support, and fabulous sense of humor. Fellow classmates and
friends Maureen Buri and Liz Spencer have also frequently offered support and encouragement.
Classmate Chris Strasbaugh assisted in creating some of the digital images. I cannot imagine
what graduate school would have been like without such wonderful classmates and friends.
Behind every good thesis is an even better librarian. I am grateful for the research
assistance of librarian Nanda Araujo in the library of the College of Design, Architecture, Art,
and Planning. Her assistance with this and countless other endeavors during my time at the
University of Cincinnati is most appreciated. Visual Resources Librarian and my graduate
assistantship supervisor Elizabeth Meyer has been extremely accommodating and encouraging as
I struggled to balance coursework, my assistantship, and this study.
At the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, curator Linda Szekely
Pero provided fast and efficient assistance in locating the letters of Roderick Stephens and
generously provided me with copies. She graciously answered my questions and offered her
insights.
Also deserving of thanks is Dr. John Martin at my undergraduate alma mater, Hanover
College. His passion and contagious enthusiasm for art history inspired me to attend graduate
school. He offered great advice and reassured me when my confidence in my abilities was
lacking.
I dedicate this study to my parents, Steven and Teri Kleopfer, whose faith in me knows
no bounds. From a young age they instilled in me a strong work ethic and a love of learning.
Throughout my life they have driven me to succeed and most importantly, to be my own person.
My accomplishments are reflections of their love and strength.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
2
Introduction
5
Chapter 1
Rockwell’s Early Illustrations of African Americans,
1926-1946
10
Chapter 2
“Hankering After Immortality”:
Rockwell's New Subject Matter in the 1960s
23
Chapter 3
“Stretching my Neck like a Swan”:
The Evolution of Rockwell’s “Big Pictures”
39
Conclusion
54
Illustrations
58
Bibliography
90
1
List of Illustrations
(All illustrations are by Norman Rockwell unless otherwise noted)
Figure 1: Banjo Player, illustration for Pratt & Lambert in the The Saturday Evening Post
(April 3, 1926), oil on canvas, 72.5 cm x 69 cm, Collection of Pratt & Lambert, Inc.
Figure 2: Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson, 1893, oil on canvas, 89 cm x 123 cm,
Hampton University Museum Collection
Figure 3: Thataway, cover for The Saturday Evening Post (March 17, 1934), medium
unknown, dimensions unknown, whereabouts unknown
Figure 4: Love Ouanga, illustration for short story in American Magazine (June 1936), oil on
canvas, 76 cm x 157.5 cm, private collection
Figure 5: Full Treatment, cover for The Saturday Evening Post (May 18, 1940), oil on canvas,
109 cm x 89 cm, New York, NY, collection of Judy and Alan Goffman Fine Art
Figure 6: Boy in a Dining Car, cover for The Saturday Evening Post (December 7, 1946), oil
on canvas, 96.5 cm x 91.5 cm, private collection
Figure 7: The Homecoming, cover for The Saturday Evening Post (May 26, 1945), oil on
canvas, 71 cm x 56 cm, collection of Edith K. Hibbs
Figure 8: Eastman Johnson, Old Kentucky Home, 1859, oil on canvas, 115.6 cm x 92 cm, The
New York Historical Society.
Figure 9: Roadblock, cover for The Saturday Evening Post (July 9, 1949), oil on board, 76 cm
x 58.5 cm, collection of Phillip M. Grace
Figure 10: The Problem We All Live With, illustration for Look (January 14, 1964), oil on
canvas, 91.5 cm x 147.5 cm, Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Figure 11: The Problem We All Live With (study), 1963, archival photograph; original art
dimensions and whereabouts unknown, Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell
Museum
Figure 12: Unknown photographer, Ruby Bridges on her first day of school, November 14,
1960, archival photograph, dimensions unknown, from www.rubybridges.org
Figure 13: Southern Justice, unpublished illustration for Look, 1965, oil on canvas, 134.5 cm
x 106.5 cm, Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Figure 14: Southern Justice (study), illustration for Look (June 29, 1965), oil on board, 38.1
cm x 32.38 cm, Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
2
Figure 15: New Kids in the Neighborhood, illustration for Look (May 16, 1967), oil on canvas,
92.71 cm x 146.05 cm, Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Figure 16: Alvin Smith, Neshoba Specter, 1966, oil on canvas with collage, 152.4 cm x 90.17
cm, Clark Atlanta University Art Galleries
Figure 17: Robert Indiana, The Confederacy: Mississippi, 1965, silkscreen print, 88.58 cm x
75.88 cm, Morgan Art Foundation Ltd./Artists Rights Society (ARS)
Figure 18: Jeff Donaldson, Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy, 1963, oil on canvas,
121.9 cm x 121.9 cm, collection of the artist
Figure 19: Faith Ringgold, Flag for the Moon: Die Nigger, 1969, oil on canvas, 91.44 cm x
127 cm, collection of the artist
Figure 20: David Hammons, Injustice Case, 1970, mixed media body print, 152.4 cm x
102.87 cm, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Figure 21: Norman Rockwell at his easel with Blood Brothers, circa 1968, color photograph,
from the Martin Diamond Archives, as reproduced in Ben Sonder, The Legacy of
Norman Rockwell
Figure 22: Freedom of Worship, illustration for The Saturday Evening Post (February 27,
1943), oil on canvas, 117 cm x 90 cm, Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell
Museum
Figure 23: Freedom of Worship (study), 1942, oil on canvas, dimensions and whereabouts
unknown.
Figure 24: Golden Rule, cover for The Saturday Evening Post (April 1, 1961), oil on canvas,
113.5 cm x 100.5 cm, Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Figure 25: United Nations, unpublished illustration for United Nations, 1953, pencil and
charcoal on paper, 69 cm x 186.5 cm, Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell
Museum
Figure 26: Right to Know, illustration for Look (August 20, 1968), oil on canvas, 73.5 cm x
137 cm, collection of Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc.
Figure 27: Peace Corps (Peace Corps—JFK’s Bold Legacy), illustration for Look (June 14,
1966), oil on canvas, 115.5 cm x 92.5 cm, Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell
Museum
Figure 28: How Goes the War on Poverty, illustration for Look (July 27, 1965), oil on
unknown support, measurements unknown, private collection
3
Figure 29: Apollo and Beyond, illustration for Look (15 July 1969), oil on canvas, 72.5 cm x
167.5 cm, collection of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian
Institution
Figure 30: Blood Brothers, circa 1965-1968, oil on canvas, dimensions unknown, missing
from the Collection of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Figure 31: Blood Brothers (study), circa 1965-1968, oil on board, 51 cm x 25.5 cm,
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Figure 32: Blood Brothers (study), circa 1965-1968, oil on board, 54.5 cm x 26.6 cm,
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Figures 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 22, 23, and 24 © SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing Co.
Indianapolis, IN. All rights reserved www.curtispublishing.com
Figures 4, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 are Licensed by
Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
Special thanks to Curtis Publishing Company and Norman Rockwell Licensing
for permitting me to use these images in my thesis.
4
Introduction
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) is one of America’s most beloved painters. However, art
critics and art historians have largely excluded Rockwell from high culture and art historical
scholarship. New York Times art critic John Russell eulogized Rockwell in 1978, declaring that
he “will not live in the history of art.” 1 Time art critic Robert Hughes agreed that Rockwell
“never made an impression on the history of art, and never will.” 2 However, in recent years
many scholars and museum professionals have begun to reevaluate Rockwell’s place in the art
history of our nation.
Rockwell likely will always be remembered primarily for his nostalgic images of an ideal
United States published on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. However, my research
focuses on Rockwell’s oil paintings completed after he resigned from the Saturday Evening Post
in 1963 and began working for Look magazine and independent commissions. Specifically, I am
interested in Rockwell’s paintings related to the civil rights movement. In this thesis I examine
the civil rights-related images that Rockwell produced during the 1960s, compare images of
African Americans from the 1960s to Rockwell’s earlier depictions of African Americans, and
explore works in Rockwell’s oeuvre completed prior to 1960 which demonstrates an emerging
social consciousness.
As the twentieth century came to a close, the field of Rockwell scholarship began to
open. In 1993, the Norman Rockwell Museum moved from “The Old Corner House” in
Stockbridge, Massachusetts to a new site in the same city with a $9.4 million building designed
by architect Robert A.M. Stern. Respected scholar and Guggenheim museum curator Robert
Rosenblum visited the new museum with more interest in seeing Stern’s building than
1
2
Karal Ann Marling, Norman Rockwell (New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1997), 7.
Robert Hughes, “The Rembrandt of Punkin Crick,” Time, vol. 112 (November 20, 1978): 110.
5
Rockwell’s art. Once there however, he had a change of heart and a new appreciation of
Rockwell’s work. He noted, “Inside, without the distractions of modern art, I became an instant
convert to the enemy camp.” 3 The new building helped bring Rockwell’s art renewed national
attention. Scholar Clarissa Ceglio argued that “the museum not only moved physically but
politically and culturally as well.” 4 In 1999 the Norman Rockwell Museum collaborated with
Atlanta’s High Museum of Art to create the landmark exhibition “Norman Rockwell: Pictures
for the American People.” The exhibition sparked controversy as it toured the nation because it
encouraged museum visitors to seriously consider Rockwell’s works as fine art and not merely
illustrations. 5 Upon announcing that the Guggenheim would host the exhibition, Rosenblum
emphasized the boldness of the decision: “A Norman Rockwell show at the Guggenheim? The
heavens must be falling, the deities of modern art turning in their grave.” 6
In addition to all 322 of Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post covers, the exhibition also
included later paintings that lacked the Post’s nostalgic subject matter. Look magazine images
included The Problem We All Live With (1964), Southern Justice (1965), and New Kids in the
Neighborhood (1967). In The Problem We All Live With, Rockwell depicts four federal marshals
escorting young Ruby Bridges to school in 1960. Bridges was the only African American
student to attend her newly integrated school and met violent opposition on a daily basis.
Southern Justice shows three young Freedom Riders, one African American and two white,
facing death together in Philadelphia, Mississippi in the summer of 1964. New Kids in the
Neighborhood portrays two African American children’s first encounter with the other children
3
Robert Rosenblum, “Reintroducing Norman Rockwell” in Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People
(New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1999), 183.
4
Clarissa Ceglio, “Complicating Simplicity,” American Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 2 (June 1, 2002): 283.
5
In her exhibition review “Complicating Simplicity,” Ceglio describes critical reception to the exhibition. Critics
remained divided, with many considering the exhibition a success and evidence of Rockwell’s skill as a fine artist,
while others still refused to see Rockwell as anything more than an illustrator. The American public seems to have
embraced the exhibition with high attendance and strong media coverage.
6
Edgar Allen Beem, “A Rockwell Renaissance?” ARTnews, vol. 98, no. 8 (September 1999): 134.
6
in their neighborhood, who are all white. The most recent scholarship, such as art historian
Karal Ann Marling’s monographs published in 1997 and 2005, the “Pictures for the American
People” exhibition catalogue (1999), and an article (2005) by communications professors
Victoria Gallagher and Kenneth Zagacki which examines the rhetoric in Rockwell’s civil rights
era images, has focused on these three compositions specifically, but I look at a wider selection
of images from this time, as well as works from earlier stages in Rockwell’s career which are
evidence of his growing interest in racial equality.
Rockwell’s art is well documented in publications, but most focus on his Post covers and
other nostalgic works. Among the numerous monographs that have been published on Rockwell,
Marling has pioneered the revisionist look at the artist’s career. Marling examines various stages
and themes in Rockwell’s oeuvre, and provides a comprehensive biography. Her inclusion of
details such as Rockwell’s relationship with psychiatrist Erik Erikson, his struggles with
depression, and the circumstances surrounding the Rockwell family’s move from Vermont to
Stockbridge, Massachusetts provide a fresh lens through which to examine his later works. I
have corresponded with Marling via email, and she knows of no other theses, dissertations, or
publications on this topic. 7 In addition, a biography (2001) by Laura Claridge provides
numerous details about Rockwell’s life and the stories behind many of his professional decisions.
Besides monographs and exhibition catalogues, there are two catalogues of Rockwell’s complete
works and a plethora of magazine and newspaper articles. I also use primary sources such as
correspondence from the Norman Rockwell Archives at the Norman Rockwell Museum.
By integrating these many sources of information and reinterpreting Rockwell’s civil
rights images, my thesis highlights their significance and sheds new light on the reasons why
Rockwell’s later paintings made such radical departures from his earlier works. Author and
7
Marling, personal email to Kirstie Kleopfer, October 21, 2006.
7
museum director Stephen Weil wrote: “Confronted with a painting, the question invariably
arises: Has the artist chosen to depict its subject matter for its own sake alone, or is the painting
actually intended either as a means through which to express the artist’s personal feelings or as a
means to convey the artist’s particular point of view?” 8 When confronted with Rockwell’s civil
rights era images, the painter’s passion for equality and racial tolerance becomes apparent. In a
discussion with his son Thomas about the purpose of art, Rockwell asked, “Don’t artists have an
obligation to humanity? The world’s falling apart. Does an artist live on an island all by
himself? Is it his only obligation to express his own insides, or does he have an obligation to
keep?” 9 Both as an artist and as a human being, Rockwell realized his role in promoting civil
rights.
In the first chapter I provide a brief biography of the artist and examine five works
featuring African Americans that he created while working for the Saturday Evening Post,
comparing these images to his later depictions of blacks. These early paintings demonstrate the
restrictions that Rockwell’s superiors and the public placed on his works prior to his association
with Look. In the second chapter I discuss and analyze Rockwell’s three paintings that are most
commonly associated with civil rights and relate them to the specific events in American history
and Rockwell’s life that inspired them. I also compare these images to civil rights-inspired
works with similar subject matter from other illustrators and artists during this period and
evaluate the critical reception of these images. In the third chapter I trace the evolution of
Rockwell’s art, exploring lesser known Rockwell images that relate to civil rights. These images
show the various approaches the painter used to demonstrate racial tolerance.
8
Stephen E. Weil, A Cabinet of Curiosities: Inquiries into Museums and Their Prospects (Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution, 1995), 57.
9
Mary Moline, “Introduction,” Norman Rockwell Encyclopedia: A Chronological Catalog of the Artist’s Work,
1910-1978 (Indianapolis, IN: Curtis Publishing, 1979), 2.
8
Although Rockwell originally was considered a mere illustrator, scholars are increasingly
examining the artistic merit of his work and its influence on American culture. Sociologist
Herbert J. Gans calls this trend a “Rockwell revival” and believes the end result may be
Rockwell’s cultural elevation from popular culture to high culture. 10 Critic Dave Hickey
observed: “Ninety-eight percent of the artists he was presumed to be worse than are unheard of
today. Rockwell is a canonical artist whether museums say so or not.” 11 Scholar Susan Herbst
also feels that Rockwell deserves more serious consideration. In an article published in Political
Communications in 1999, Herbst emphasizes why the artist should be studied:
The sheer popularity of Rockwell’s oeuvre, the fact that his images find their way
into so many schoolrooms and public buildings in America to this day, is enough
to warrant the serious attention of scholars—whether they like the pictures or not.
Somehow Rockwell, in his chronic attempts to pander to public tastes and ideas,
managed to achieve a place in the history visual imagery that astounds: His
prolific work spanned most of the twentieth century and, during those decades,
created a resonance with the American mind that few other artists or illustrators
have achieved. Rockwell’s work may very well be the pinnacle of banality, but it
is distinctly American and ours alone. 12
With my thesis I am providing a closer examination of Rockwell’s civil rights paintings
and other images of African Americans, contributing to this blossoming area of art history. The
artist chose dramatically different subject matter as he shifted from the Saturday Evening Post to
Look magazine, choices which particularly denote a drastic change in his depiction of African
Americans. This study reveals a side of Rockwell that is too often overshadowed by the artist’s
popular scenes of nostalgia. My thesis adds to the reconsideration of Rockwell’s work,
emphasizing his significant place in American art history.
10
Herbert J. Gans, “Can Rockwell Survive Cultural Elevation?” Columbia Journalism Review, vol. 18
(November/December 1979): 40.
11
Beem, 137.
12
Susan Herbst, “Illustrator, American Icon, and Public Opinion Theorist: Norman Rockwell in Democracy,”
Political Communication, vol. 21, no. 1 (January-March 2004): 3.
9
Chapter One
Rockwell’s Early Illustrations of African Americans, 1926-1946
Rockwell became a household name during the first half of the twentieth century. His
work appeared on magazine covers, as story illustrations, in calendars, books, and even
advertisements in magazines. His love of drawing developed early in life, and remained a
passion until his death. However, at the beginning of his career, Rockwell did not have complete
control over his subject matter. A closer examination of Rockwell’s early depictions of African
Americans, dating from 1926, reveals a drastic shift in subject matter and attitude. In a 1971
interview with writer Richard Reeves, the artist matter-of-factly stated: “George Horace Lorimer
[1869-1937], who was a very liberal man, told me never to show colored people except as
servants.” 1 Lorimer was the editor of the Saturday Evening Post for the first twenty years that
Rockwell worked for the magazine. Works such as The Banjo Player (1926), Thataway (1934),
Love Ouanga (1936), Full Treatment (1940), and Boy in the Dining Car (1946) reinforce
Lorimer’s limitation and demonstrate the restrictions that Rockwell’s superiors and public
preferences placed on Rockwell’s works prior to his association with Look.
Although Rockwell is probably best-known for his covers and illustrations in the
Saturday Evening Post, his career did not start there. Norman Perceval Rockwell was born
February 3, 1894 in New York City to Jarvis and Nancy Rockwell. His father managed a textile
firm and his mother was the daughter of a failed British painter, 2 Howard Hill. 3 Rockwell later
attributed his love of realism and meticulous detail to his grandfather’s works. 4 From an early
age, drawing was a regular part of Rockwell’s life. His father often read Charles Dickens’s
1
Richard Reeves, “Norman Rockwell is Exactly Like a Norman Rockwell,” New York Times Magazine (February
28, 1971): 42.
2
Thomas S. Buechner, Norman Rockwell: A Sixty Year Retrospective (New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1972), 22.
3
Rockwell’s grandfather was known as Howard Hill, but his birth name was Thomas Howard Jenkin. He took the
name Howard Hill after being adopted by an aunt. From Linda Szekely Pero, personal email to Kirstie Kleopfer,
May 9, 2007.
4
Moline, “Introduction,” 3.
10
stories to Rockwell and his younger brother Jarvis in the evenings, and Rockwell would draw the
characters as he listened. Rockwell described his early recognition of his artistic ability: “It was
just something I had, like a bag of lemon drops. My brother Jarvis could jump over three orange
crates; George Dugan could wiggle his ears; I could draw.” 5 Unlike his athletic brother, the
future artist had poor coordination and was so pigeon-toed that he had to wear corrective shoes at
the age of ten. 6 Instead of being frustrated by these physical limitations, Rockwell focused on
his talent: “All I had was the ability to draw. Because it was all I had, I made it my whole life. I
drew all the time.” 7
In 1903 Rockwell’s family moved to Mamaroneck, New York. At the age of fourteen he
began to commute to New York City one day a week for formal art training at the Chase School
of Fine and Applied Art. 8 He soon increased his instruction at the school to two days a week and
by his sophomore year of high school he began to pursue art full time at the National Academy
of Design, and in 1910, at the Art Students League. 9 Famous alumni of the school included
Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944), Winslow Homer (1836-1910), and Howard Pyle (18531911). 10 Rockwell’s teachers recognized his talent and guided him towards success. At the age
of seventeen he illustrated the book Tell Me Why Stories (1911) and just two years later he
became the art director of Boys’ Life, the official monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of
5
Kenneth Stuart, “Unforgettable Norman Rockwell,” Reader’s Digest, vol. 115 (July 1979): 106.
Buechner, 24.
7
Alan Rusbridger, “Model Citizens,” Guardian (December 11, 1993, weekend): 12.
8
Buechner, 24.
9
Arpi Ermoyan, “Norman Rockwell,” Famous American Illustrators (New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications,
1997), 10.
10
Buechner, 24. The curriculum was closely related to the French tradition and included completing charcoal
studies from plaster casts of classical sculptures before sketching live male models. Buechner notes that the school
was “stiff, stilted, and oriented toward winning that classic scholarship, the Prix de Rome.”
6
11
America. 11 His greatest success of this period, however, came when Rockwell’s first Saturday
Evening Post cover was published on May 20, 1916. His classmate Clyde Forsythe (1885-1962),
a cartoonist, encouraged Rockwell to submit his work to America’s most popular magazine.
Rockwell lacked confidence, but traveled to Philadelphia to meet with the publication’s editors
anyway. To his amazement, they not only accepted his first cover, but immediately
commissioned three more. 12
In addition for creating cover art for the Post, Rockwell produced works for other
nationally prominent publications such as Collier’s, Country Gentleman, Judge, Leslie’s, Life,
Literary Digest, People’s Popular Monthly, and Popular Science. 13 Success brought fame and
wealth to Rockwell. By 1920 he was a leading cover artist at the Post and by 1925, he was a
nationally-known name. 14 During the roaring twenties he joined high society, partying and
traveling around the world. However, his wife Irene, whom he had married in 1916, seemed to
enjoy the lavish lifestyle more than Rockwell, and the two divorced in 1929. 15 Just a year later,
Rockwell met and married Mary Barstow (1908-1959). Their union proved to be a happy one
and produced three sons, Jarvis (b. 1931), Thomas (b. 1933), and Peter (b. 1936). The
Rockwells resided in New Rochelle, New York until 1939 when the family moved to Arlington,
Vermont, desiring the simpler life a small town could offer. Many of Rockwell’s Arlington
neighbors would serve as models for some of his most memorable Post covers. 16 Longtime
Saturday Evening Post art director Kenneth Stuart noted in a tribute article published after
11
Ibid., 29. Rockwell would expand his professional relationship with the Boy Scouts of America by illustrating
books and later, the organization’s annual calendar. In 1945 the New Yorker magazine estimated that Americans
glanced at Rockwell’s Boy Scout calendars 1.6 billion times daily. From Susan Herbst, 4.
12
Jack Alexander, “Biographical Introduction,” Arthur L. Guptill, ed. Norman Rockwell, Illustrator (New York,
NY: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1946), xix-xx.
13
Buechner, 44.
14
Hughes, 110.
15
Stuart, 106.
16
New Rochelle is located just outside of New York City, whereas Arlington is located in rural Vermont.
12
Rockwell’s death that “half of the town eventually turned up on Post covers.” 17 The family
would later relocate to Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1953, where Rockwell would once again
frequently enlist local residents as models. 18
Although Rockwell’s work would appear on the front covers of eighty magazines, his
work at the Saturday Evening Post would dominate the first four decades of his career. 19
Rockwell enjoyed working for the Post and even thought of the work as easy to do because his
illustrations were (until 1941) silhouetted against a white background. He later reflected, “I
worked, but I didn’t stew over how I painted the pictures.” 20 This way of creating would
drastically change later in his career when new subject matter caused the artist to “stew” over a
single painting for months, even years. 21 Rockwell seemed undaunted by his role in the growing
success of the Post. In 1913, prior to Rockwell’s work with the publication, its circulation was
two million. In 1937, the numbers had skyrocketed and the magazine had a circulation of about
three million, much higher than the circulation of today’s most popular magazines. 22 This is
even more remarkable when one considers that the population of the United States was about a
third of what it is today in 1937. 23 Stuart noted that a Post issue which featured Rockwell’s
cover work increased non-subscription sales of the magazine by about 250,000. 24 Journalist
17
Ibid.
Marling, 136. Marling notes that the Rockwells moved to Stockbridge because Mary sought treatment at the
Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge for her “struggles with alcohol and other problems.” Stockbridge is a hundred
miles from Arlington and since her treatment began in the winter, the Rockwells stayed in a Stockbridge inn to
avoid hazardous winter roads. They liked the town and in the spring decided to settle there permanently.
19
Moline, “Magazine Covers,” 11. In the Norman Rockwell Encyclopedia, Moline notes that Rockwell’s
illustrations were published on the covers of eighty magazines. Among his most frequent cover publications, she
totals 322 for the Saturday Evening Post, forty-seven for Literary Digest, twenty-eight for Life, thirty-four for
Country Gentleman, and thirty for Boys’ Life.
20
Ibid.
21
In his autobiography, Rockwell describes working on several paintings such as the “Four Freedoms” series for
several months and struggling with the UN Commission for several years. These commissions are described in
more detail in Chapter Three.
22
Herbst, 3.
23
Ibid.
24
Stuart, 106.
18
13
Michael Kimmelman noted in a recent article about a Rockwell exhibit: “You might say that the
magazine [the Saturday Evening Post] was akin to what television became in terms of general
appeal, and Rockwell quickly rose to be its premier draftsman.” 25
Creating a cover design was no simple task. Magazine designer Milton Glaser describes
the purpose of a magazine cover as being two-fold. First, it has to solicit the attention of the
reader (and potential buyer). Secondly, the cover is meant to inform the reader of what one will
find inside the magazine. Glaser notes that Rockwell’s cover art did not quite fit this mold:
“Rockwell’s approach was different. In his Saturday Evening Post covers, for example, he
created a kind of symbolic equivalent for the magazine’s attitude and view of life.” 26 Indeed,
Lorimer ensured that the illustrations of Rockwell and other illustrators maintained the values
and beliefs of the publication. Lorimer served as editor of the Post from 1898 to1936. During
this time, he chose the cover art for each week, in addition to all story illustrations. Rockwell
usually brought sketches of about five ideas to Lorimer for approval. The artist would then
describe the narrative, characters, and history to the editor in an effort to convince him that the
illustration would be a success with readers. Rockwell biographer Ben Sonder describes this
process as being similar to a screenwriter’s “story pitching” to producers. 27
In addition to cover and story art, Lorimer also censored the advertising art for the
magazine. Lorimer biographer John Tebbel emphasizes, “He meant to keep the Post a family
magazine, right down to the smallest illustration.” 28 Post covers were outrageously popular with
audiences, especially those living in the Midwest. Some readers went so far as to establish
25
As quoted in Herbst, 4. Original quotation from Michael Kimmelman, “Renaissance for a ‘Lightweight,’” New
York Times, November 7, 1999 (from the New York Times archive online, p. 1 of 3 of electronically reproduced print
article).
26
Milton Glaser, “The Importance of Being Rockwell,” Columbia Journalism Review, vol. 18
(November/December 1979): 40.
27
Ben Sonder, The Legacy of Norman Rockwell ( New York, NY: Todtri Productions Limited, 1997), 43.
28
John Tebbel, George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday Evening Post (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and
Company, Inc., 1948), 114.
14
betting pools for the next week’s cover topic. Tebbel believes that the magazine’s cover art
resonated with readers because artists like Rockwell drew their subject matter from the everyday
lives of such people. Tebbel describes Rockwell’s covers as “a national institution, like the
magazine itself.” 29 Even in a time when many magazines were beginning to use photographs
more frequently, Lorimer and his Post continued to resist change and used photography later and
less than most of the rival publications. 30
Rockwell’s art appeared not only on the cover of the Post, but also as story illustrations
or even advertisements. A wide variety of companies hired the artist—his images were used to
peddle diverse products such as life insurance, Jell-O, toothpaste, even floor varnish. On April
3, 1926 the Post included an advertisement for Pratt & Lambert varnish featuring Rockwell’s
illustration The Banjo Player (Figure 1). The oil painting depicts an older black man sitting atop
an ottoman and strumming a banjo. At his feet a little white boy sits cross-legged on the
hardwood floor, seemingly enthralled by this private performance. The musician’s worn hat and
cane lay on the floor on his right. A warm light illuminates the room from the side. The
background shows a brick fireplace surrounded by woodwork. The scene immediately brings to
mind African American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner’s (1859-1937) The Banjo Lesson (1893)
(Figure 2). Tanner’s musician is seated on a chair, but occupies a similar position in the work.
A hat rests on the ground just behind and to the side of the chair. Instead of playing for a young
child, Tanner’s banjo player helps support the instrument while a young black boy leans toward
him and learns to play. Light radiates from an unseen source on the right, adding to the warmth
of the setting. Tanner’s oil painting shows the passing of a tradition from one generation to
another. Art historian Sharon Patton notes that the black man playing the banjo was a common
29
30
Ibid.
Ibid., 117.
15
subject in mid-nineteenth century American paintings. However, Tanner’s thoughtful and
intimate interpretation of the subject is unusual, especially since it was created at a time when
blacks had all but disappeared from most American genre paintings.31
Scholar Laural Weintraub relates Rockwell’s version of the banjo player to the
stereotypes of the black entertainer which were popular with illustrators such as Homer and A.B.
Frost (1851-1928). The young boy is at home in middle-class surroundings while the musician is
out of place. Weintraub describes the banjo player as a symbol of black vernacular music,
introduced into an alien environment like an exotic bird removed from its natural habitat. 32
Weintraub suggests that Rockwell may have created the image to appeal to the growing interest
of white audiences in black music. During the 1920s, black musicals were huge sensations on
Broadway, jazz made Harlem’s nightclubs some of New York City’s most popular, and the
spiritual was being revived by African American singers such as Marian Anderson (1897-1993),
Roland Hayes (1887-1977), and Paul Robeson (1898-1976). 33 Rockwell’s depiction of the banjo
player shows admiration for the musical tradition the man is a part of, but reinforces the idea of
the stereotypical black entertainer. If Rockwell had submitted a composition that was more like
Tanner’s, it is likely that Lorimer would have disapproved. Pratt & Lambert may also have
preferred that Rockwell include the white boy sitting on the polished hardwood floor to appeal to
the targeted consumer, the white middle-class reader of the Saturday Evening Post. Such readers
might have also associated the varnish with blacks working in the service industry.
31
Sharon F. Patton, African-American Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 99-100.
Laural E. Weintraub, “Albert A. Smith’s Plantation Melodies: The American South as Musical Heartland,”
International Review of African American Art, vol. 19, no. 1 (2003): 15.
33
Ibid.
32
16
The next depiction of an African American that Rockwell published for the Post was
Thataway (Figure 3), the cover of the March 17, 1934 issue. 34 A white woman dressed in full
equestrian costume sits half-dazed on the ground after falling off her horse. A young black boy
faces the woman and points in the direction her horse has gone. He wears a red shirt with yellow
polka dots. His blue pants are rolled up above his knees and he is barefoot. He holds his hat
behind him with his right hand, as though he politely removed it out of respect for the woman.
His dress and bare feet sharply indicate the difference between his class and that of the rider with
her elegant ensemble and gleaming black leather riding boots. His faithful spotted hound sits
patiently between his feet. Unlike so many of the adorable children Rockwell depicted during
his career, the boy’s face is mostly hidden from view and is seen only in partial profile. Thus he
becomes more of a stock character, lacking the individuality possessed by so many of the
children Rockwell depicted.
The next illustration Rockwell created involving African Americans was a short story
illustration Love Ouanga (Figure 4), featured as a two-page spread in American Magazine’s June
1939 issue. The story by author Kenneth Perkins (1890-1951) involves a quadroon woman,
Spice Mackson, who is pregnant with the illegitimate grandchild of a local ghetto politician in
New Orleans. The politician disapproves of his son’s relationship with Spice and she seeks
refuge in a church. The sophisticated, elegant presence of Spice captivates the attention of the
other church-goers. In Rockwell’s illustration, Spice sits uncomfortably at the edge of the pew
as the family sitting in the same pew and those sitting behind her all either stare directly at her or
sneak peeks at her by looking sideways. Spice’s stylish red dress, elegant pearl jewelry, delicate
red high-heeled sandals, painted nails, and fancy tapestry handbag contrast the simple, worn
clothes of the others. Art historian Karal Ann Marling acknowledges:
34
This painting is sometimes alternately titled He Went Thataway.
17
The story and appended illustration do not stand up to close scrutiny, constructed
as they are out of a grab bag of racial stereotypes, condescension, and the
operative American belief that the sorts of people who neither wrote for the big
magazines nor read them were liable to be picturesque. In the 1920s and 1930s,
in the eyes of white observers, black culture represented a kind of homegrown
exoticism anyway. Porgy and Bess, Marc Connelly’s The Green Pastures, and
the Amos ‘n’ Andy show on the radio all presented Spice Mackson—or somebody
just like her—as profoundly alien in speech and mores, in appearance and
attitude. Rockwell distinguished himself from his contemporaries in this instance
by painting one of his only truly beautiful women for the story of the New
Orleans quadroon in American Magazine. 35
This illustration also demonstrates that Rockwell was aware of the growing tension in the United
States, not just between blacks and whites, but between the varying classes within African
American culture. Marling describes this painting as the first hint of Rockwell’s fervent support
of the Civil Rights Movement. 36
The next depiction of an African American was another Saturday Evening Post cover.
Full Treatment (Figure 5) illustrated the cover of the May 18, 1940 issue. 37 In the painting, a
businessman smoking a cigar sits in a barber’s chair smiling as he is pampered from head to toe.
His head is wrapped in a towel as the barber massages his cheeks. A young woman manicures
his left hand and on his right side at his feet a young black boy kneels, polishing the man’s shoes.
The soles of the boy’s own shoes are tattered and worn. A red striped shirt is visible beneath the
raised edge of his tidy white frock. Much like the boy depicted in Thataway, the face of this
youth is also hidden from the viewer as he is only seen from the rear. This work is an excellent
example of Rockwell following the orders Lorimer had given him to depict blacks only as
servants. Shoe shining was a common occupation for boys such as the one Rockwell painted.
Even though Lorimer had retired in 1936, the policy he had established continued to be in effect
with the succeeding editor, Ben Hibbs. Although the leadership changed, the readership
35
Marling, 137-138.
Marling, Norman Rockwell, 1894-1978: America’s Most Beloved Painter (Cologne: Taschen, 2005), 21.
37
This work is sometimes alternately titled Shave and a Haircut.
36
18
remained the same. The white, middle-class reader preferred a conservative albeit humorous
cover illustration, not a controversial image.
Another Saturday Evening Post cover image which depicts a black as a servant is Boy in
a Dining Car (Figure 6). The work appeared on the cover of the December 7, 1946 issue. It
features Rockwell’s youngest son Peter as the young white diner who is trying to determine how
much to tip the waiter who watches patiently.38 The boy concentrates, clutching his coin purse
in his right hand as he holds the bill up with his left, enabling the viewer to look at it, too.
Although the child is trying his best to be grown-up, the Felix the Cat comic in his jacket pocket
and his multi-colored striped socks and sneakers are reminders of his youth. The waiter smiles
as he politely waits for his tip, with his hands gathered behind his back, seemingly amused at the
situation. Rockwell painted the scene based on drawings he made from a New York Central
dining car from the Lake Shore Limited and used an actual railroad waiter, Jefferson Smith, as a
model. 39 Smith was a handsome man with a kind face, perfect as a patient waiter. The man’s
friendly demeanor and professionalism give him a dignified presence, but his role as a servant
still upholds Lorimer’s policy. While the image likely pleased conservative men like Lorimer,
the little boy’s efforts to appropriately tip the waiter and Smith’s dignified presence might have
struck a sympathetic chord with more liberal viewers.
The images discussed in this chapter are not the only instances of African Americans
appearing in Rockwell’s cover illustrations. In two other works, The Homecoming (1945), and
Roadblock (1949), blacks are included in the compositions, though their roles are marginal. The
Homecoming (Figure 7) was the Post cover on May 26, 1945, celebrating the end of the war and
38
Marling, Norman Rockwell, 1894-1978: America’s Most Beloved Painter, 58. Another interpretation suggested
by art historian Diane Mankin is that the child is worried he does not have enough money to pay his bill.
39
Ibid.
19
the triumphant return of a soldier to his neighborhood in a city. 40 His family rushes outside to
meet him and neighbors witness the joyous scene from their windows. Some of the youngest
neighbors have climbed up two trees in the upper right of the painting. The child on top is an
African American boy who waves enthusiastically to welcome his neighbor home. This work
may be based on Eastman Johnson’s Old Kentucky Home (1859) (Figure 8). Johnson’s painting
shows blacks and whites gathered under a porch, relaxing to banjo music. Rockwell’s scene
includes many of the same details as Eastman’s: a dog, the tree on the right, a brick building, and
people leaning out of an upstairs window. The other illustration which included two black
children was Roadblock (Figure 9), the cover for the July 9, 1949 issue of the Post. 41 The youths
are in the lower right and, like the boys in Thataway and Full Treatment, their faces are hidden
from the viewer. The children wear tidy clothing, have neatly coiffed hair, and have a modest
stance. They are two of many onlookers who watch as a man tries to coax a bulldog from
obstructing the path of his delivery truck. Like The Homecoming, this scene is also set in a more
urban environment. Other than in images of service, an urban setting seemed to be the only type
of composition where Rockwell could incorporate blacks into the picture during this period. I
will discuss Rockwell’s attempts at more positive portrayals of African Americans while
working for the Saturday Evening Post in the third chapter.
For forty-seven years, Rockwell was a regularly-featured cover artist for the Saturday
Evening Post. Each year he created an average of six to seven covers and numerous story
illustrations, in addition to continuing his work with other publications. 42 In 1926 the Post
upgraded from a two-color process to a full color process which greatly enhanced Rockwell’s
40
This painting is also known as Homecoming, G.I.
This painting is sometimes alternately titled Bulldog Blocking Traffic or Traffic Conditions.
42
Sherry Marker, Norman Rockwell (North Dighton, MA: JG Press and World Publications Group, 2004), 16.
41
20
images, allowing them to be more colorful and realistic. 43 Another innovative technology that
the magazine began using during Rockwell’s career was photography. Photographs slowly
began to replace illustrations, threatening the need for illustrators. However, Rockwell also used
the technology of photography to his advantage, taking pictures of models in a variety of poses,
eliminating the need for multiple, lengthy, and costly live modeling sessions. The artist was
reluctant at first to shoot such photographs. In his autobiography he describes the guilt he felt
over his new practice:
I didn’t want to be left behind by the young illustrators. I knew survival hinged
on the ability to accept new ideas and techniques. You either changed or you held
fast, congealed, and were buried. And what about models? The same thing
applied to that situation. I had to adapt myself or drown. So I hired a
photographer and took photographs for an illustration. It was quite a wrench, I
felt like a traitor to my profession, but I set my teeth and plunged in. 44
Rockwell was growing increasingly frustrated with the limitations that the editors of the
Saturday Evening Post imposed on his subject matter. Despite this, his success continued. In
1958 he became the first illustrator to be inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame
and in 1959 was named “Artist of the Year” by the Artists Guild of New York. 45 That year was
also marked by sadness when Rockwell’s wife Mary died suddenly of a heart attack. 46 It was
during this same period that the Post began to fail. The social and political attitudes of American
readers were beginning to change and such readers increasingly had trouble relating to
Rockwell’s nostalgic illustrations. 47 In an effort to survive, the magazine introduced a
redesigned format in 1961 which called for portraits and photographs on the covers instead of
everyday scenes. The Post commissioned Rockwell to travel all over the world, painting
43
Tebbel, 117.
Norman Rockwell, as told to Tom Rockwell. Norman Rockwell: My Adventures as an Illustrator (New York,
NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 289.
45
Ermoyan, 10.
46
Elizabeth Miles Montgomery, Norman Rockwell (New York, NY: Gallery Books, 1989), 30.
47
Ibid.
44
21
portraits of international leaders. 48 Rockwell, who had married a retired Stockbridge
schoolteacher, Molly Punderson, in 1961, disliked the direction the Post was moving in and
resigned at the end of 1963. 49
Overall, Rockwell’s relationship with the Saturday Evening Post was a highly successful
and productive union for both artist and publication. The magazine established Rockwell as a
leading American illustrator and in turn the artist helped boost the popularity of the Post.
However, as Rockwell evolved as an artist, he began to feel more and more constricted by the
editorial policies of Lorimer and the subsequent editors. As racial tensions increased and the
civil rights movement gained momentum, Rockwell found himself in need of a new job. Look
magazine offered Rockwell the solution to his problems. Look wanted the artist to focus on art
as a means of reportage and offered him the chance to work with subject matter that genuinely
interested him and the magazine’s expanding readership. 50 He would soon be able to reveal his
true feelings about equality of the races and to create works that brought pressing social issues to
the forefront and forced Americans to reconsider the injustices of their society. The new
direction that Rockwell was about to take in his works would defiantly contrast with the idyllic
images that had made his early career so successful.
48
Margaret T. Rockwell, Norman Rockwell’s Chronicles of America (New York, NY: MetroBooks, 1996), 106.
Ibid.
50
Ibid.
49
22
Chapter Two
“Hankering After Immortality”: Rockwell's New Subject Matter in the 1960s
Rockwell’s relationship with the Saturday Evening Post ended in December 1963, just in
time for him to have a fresh start with Look magazine for the new year of 1964. The 1960s were
a challenging decade for national periodicals. Collier’s had ceased publication in 1956, and the
Saturday Evening Post was growing increasingly weak as television became a more powerful
and popular source of entertainment and information. However, magazines such as Look and
LIFE remained strong, with high advertising revenues. When Rockwell began working for Look,
the journal was moving towards what founder Gardner “Mike” Cowles referred to as its “highwater mark,” which occurred in 1966 when the popular magazine had its highest sales and
circulation. 1 Editor Dan Mich had recently returned to the publication after a brief hiatus,
bringing with him his passion for thought-provoking journalism. Mich, along with art director
Allen Hurlburt, would provide Rockwell with the freedom to finally produce the “big pictures”
that he had been forbidden to produce for the Post. Three of these images: The Problem We All
Live With (1964), Southern Justice (1965), and New Kids in the Neighborhood (1967), are
among the most frequently reproduced and discussed by scholars. 2 A deeper analysis of these
three paintings and the historical events which inspired them reveals Rockwell’s passionate
critique of the American society he had so frequently idealized.
Look was one of the first national magazines to chronicle the growing racial tensions in
the South. On January 24, 1956, Look featured William Bradford Huie’s article “The Shocking
Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi.” Cowles believed this was the most controversial
1
Gardner Cowles, Mike Looks Back: The Memoirs of Gardner Cowles, Founder of Look Magazine (New York, NY:
Gardner Cowles, 1985), 219.
2
Rockwell scholars such as Karal Ann Marling and Laura Claridge have chosen to focus on these three images, as
have writers Victoria Gallagher and Kenneth S. Zagacki. In addition, most of the sources I have found about this
period in Rockwell’s life discuss at least one, and on occasion, all three images. For the specific sources I consulted,
please see the bibliography.
23
23
story ever printed by the magazine. 3 The article was a horrific account of the death of Emmett
Till (1941-1955) in 1955, a young African American from Chicago who was murdered while
visiting family friends in Mississippi. Two white men stood trial for Till’s killing but were
acquitted by an all-white jury after only an hour of deliberation. 4 Till’s murder caused national
outrage, helping the civil rights movement to gain momentum. Look’s early involvement in the
movement must have appealed to Rockwell. According to art historian Karal Ann Marling,
Rockwell’s son Tom believes that his father was only passionate about two political issues in his
lifetime: the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and civil rights for black Americans. 5
Rockwell’s first Look illustration, The Problem We All Live With (Figure 10), debuted in
the “How We Live”-themed issue on January 14, 1964. Unlike his Post cover images, The
Problem We All Live With was featured inside the magazine with no text accompanying it. In the
oil painting, four federal marshals escort young Ruby Bridges into New Orleans’ William Frantz
Public School in 1960. Bridges was the only African American child to attend the newly
desegregated school. The little girl’s dark skin and hair contrast sharply with her crisp white
dress, cuffed socks, sneakers, and the hair ribbon on her braid. In her left hand she carries her
schoolbooks, a ruler, and two freshly sharpened pencils. The white marshals are divided into
two pairs, one walking ahead of Bridges while the other follows. The canvas is cropped at their
shoulders, but the mass of their bodies emphasizes Bridge’s petite form. She walks closest to the
men in front of her, as if she is seeking protection from them. 6 She has good reason to do so; the
wall behind her is dripping with blood-red juice and pulp, the splattered remains of a tomato,
3
Ibid., 191.
Mark Grossman, “Till, Emmett (1941-1955),” The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Civil Rights Movement (Santa
Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1993), 197.
5
Marling, Norman Rockwell, 140.
6
In a study for this painting (Figure 11), Rockwell originally placed the girl closest to the rear guards. Thus,
moving her closer to the front guards is a deliberate attempt by the artist to evoke the sympathy of the viewer.
4
24
24
likely thrown at her by the jeering crowd that gathered to protest her entry into the school. 7
Despite the fear she might have, Bridges continues to look ahead stoically. The viewer is forced
to wonder if she notices that the handwritten epithet “NIGGER” remains visible in capital letters
beneath a pale whitewash on the wall, or that the letters “KKK” are also inscribed on the wall,
just in front of the first pair of marshals. 8 Bridges moves ahead with determination; Rockwell
has painted her mid-stride with her right hand swinging forward to reveal a clenched fist. The
right hands of three of the guards are also visible, and their hands mimic the gesture and position
of Bridges’s hand. The large size of the men’s hands in comparison with the girl’s tiny fist also
stresses her small size. The group appears to be marching as though they are soldiers in a war
for civil rights.
While this painting shares many stylistic features with Rockwell’s previous works, the
subject matter and poignant title demand that the viewer give it more serious consideration. The
artist uses the issue’s theme of “How We Live” to bring attention to the problem of racism in
America. Bridges appears as likeable and sweet as any of the young girls who have populated
Rockwell’s magazine illustrations, yet her race makes her a target of hatred, rage, and violence
by whites. It was unacceptable to Rockwell that a child should need federal protection on her
way to school. He wanted to remind readers across the nation that racism was a problem of the
entire country, not just the southern states. The nationwide circulation of Look offered the artist
the opportunity to send a strong message directly into the homes of millions of readers.
7
I did not find any news sources which mention protesters actually throwing fruit at Bridges. However, it is likely
that Rockwell added this detail to his depiction as a representation of the violence of the crowd watching outside the
picture plane.
8
Biographer Laura Claridge notes that in addition to the racial graffiti, Rockwell also includes “MP NR” inside a
heart on the wall (just below the left hand of the guard in front of and to the right of Bridges). These are the initials
of Rockwell and Molly Punderson, whom he had married in 1961. Claridge believes that Rockwell included this
because his wife supported him in pursuing new subject matter for his paintings. Claridge, Norman Rockwell (New
York, NY: Random House, 2001), 451-452.
25
25
Contemporary viewers likely would have been familiar with Ruby Bridges’s story, or at
the very least, the issue of school segregation. In the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education
of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court had declared public school segregation unconstitutional.
Even with the federal ruling, New Orleans resisted integrating its schools until the fall of 1960.
Bridges, a first grader, was one of three children chosen to attend the Frantz School, but the other
two girls decided not to enroll there, leaving Bridges to enter the school alone (Figure 12, photo
of Ruby Bridges entering school). In addition to being the only African American at her new
school, Bridges was also the only student in her class. White parents were so outraged at the
idea of their children sharing a classroom with a black child that they kept their students out of
the school for the entire year. 9
Besides media coverage of the event, Rockwell likely knew of Bridges’s story from two
other sources: psychiatrist Robert Coles, and John Steinbeck’s novel Travels with Charley in
Search of America (1962). Both Coles and Steinbeck witnessed Bridges’s historic entrance into
the Frantz School and were deeply influenced by what they saw. 10 In Travels with Charley,
Steinbeck recounts his journey with his black poodle Charley as they traveled across America for
three months, experiencing various cultures, attitudes, and ways of life. 11 The author described
the scene in New Orleans:
The show opened on time. Sound of sirens. Motorcycle cops. Then two big
black cars filled with big men in blond felt hats pulled up in front of the school.
The crowd seemed to hold its breath. Four big marshals got out of each car and
from somewhere in the automobiles they extracted the littlest Negro girl you ever
saw, dressed in starchy white, with new white shoes on feet so little they were
almost round. Her face and little legs were very black against the white…The
9
Ruby Bridges Hall, “The Education of Ruby Nell,” www.rubybridgesfoundation.org/story.htm. Originally
published in Guideposts, March 2000: 3-7.
10
Victoria Gallagher and Kenneth S. Zagacki, “Visibility and Rhetoric: The Power of Visual Images in Norman
Rockwell’s Depictions of Civil Rights,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 91 (May 2005): 176.
11
According to a public speaking engagement of Ruby Bridges Hall, Rockwell read Steinbeck and it was the
author’s account which inspired Rockwell. This may help to explain the three-year delay in Rockwell’s creation of
the picture since Steinbeck’s book was not published until 1962. From Eileen McCluskey, “Ruby Bridges Evokes
Tears, Smiles as She Tells Her Tale.” Harvard University Gazette (25 April 2002). Harvard University Gazette
Archives: http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.25/profiles.html. Accessed 24 February 2007.
26
26
little girl did not look back at the howling crowd but from the side the whites of
her eyes showed like those of a frightened fawn. The men turned her around like
a doll, and then the strange procession moved up the broad walk toward the
school, and the child was even more a mite because the men were so big. 12
Rockwell’s pictorial depiction of Bridges includes many of these details: the crisp white dress,
shiny new sneakers, the stoic stare forward, the seemingly giant marshals, and evidence of a
jeering crowd.
Coles was a young therapist when he met Bridges. He worked after school with her and
three other African American girls who attended integrated schools in 1960, learning how the
children were affected by the struggles they faced on a daily basis in order to attend school. Not
surprisingly, Coles discovered that segregation had damaged the self-esteem of the little girls. 13
One of Coles’s leading mentors in the field of psychology was Erik Erikson, a psychoanalyst at
the Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In addition to treating Rockwell’s occasional
bouts of depression, Erikson was the artist's friend. Erikson’s passion for civil rights in America
prompted both Coles and Rockwell to participate in the movement for equality. Coles published
The Desegregation of Southern Schools: A Psychiatric Study (1963) based on the results of his
experiences with Bridges and the other girls. Marling notes that “it is not a text for The Problem
We All Live With in the classic sense. But Coles’s work was the spiritual force behind
Rockwell’s big picture.” 14 Although Coles did not meet Rockwell until the late 1960s when the
artist illustrated a children’s book authored by Coles, Erikson likely made Rockwell familiar
12
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley In Search of America (New York, NY: Viking Press, 1962), 226-227.
Coles asked Ruby to make drawings of white children, as well as self-portraits. Ruby’s drawings of white
children were larger and more realistic, but her self-portraits were smaller and lacked the detail she used in the
drawings of white children. Marling notes that Coles’s findings were similar to the results of experiments by
African American psychologists Kenneth Clark and his wife Mamie Phipp Clark in the segregated schools of
Clarendon County, South Carolina in the 1940s. The Clarks found that when black children were presented with
white dolls and black dolls, the majority identified themselves with the white dolls and labeled the black dolls as
being “bad.” The Clarks also found that many black children in segregated schools preferred to use light-colored
crayons to draw self-portraits instead of crayons which more closely resembled their actual skin tone. The Clarks’s
report was used by the NAACP as evidence of psychological damage caused by segregation in the Brown v. Board
of Education case, in addition to evidence from Erikson’s study Childhood and Society (1950).
14
Marling, Norman Rockwell, 141.
13
27
27
with Coles’s interest in Bridges’s experiences. Perhaps Coles’s disturbing findings inspired
Rockwell to use his power as America’s artist to bring attention to Bridges’s story. After the
painting was published, Coles discussed it with Bridges, who, for the most part, approved of the
artist’s version of her story:
I sure wish I could draw the way he does! He’s got it down, what’s happening,
Daddy said, and he’s right. I thought of the picture the other day, when I went to
school, and I wondered what the men [the marshals] would say—if they saw the
picture. I’ll bet one of the marshals would say that his wife thought that if
everyone in that crowd saw the picture, it might make a difference—they’d stop
being so mean. But I’ll bet the other marshal would say he wasn’t so sure [that
would happen], because you’ve got a lot of angry people out there. That’s what
one marshal kept saying a lot—that there were a lot of angry people out there. If
you look at the [Rockwell] picture in a magazine, you’ll see things going all right,
nice and quiet, but if you looked at the television back then, it was real bad. 15
Rockwell’s second major civil rights painting for Look was Southern Justice (Figure 13),
which was to appear in the magazine on June 29, 1965. 16 The image portrays the murder of
three young men, James Chaney, age twenty-one, Andrew Goodman, age twenty-four, and
Michael Schwerner, age twenty, all killed while working for the civil rights movement in
Mississippi during the “Freedom Summer” of 1964. Rockwell showed their final moments as
they faced their executioners. Near the center of the canvas, Schwerner stands tall while Chaney,
on his knees, leans on him. Chaney clings to Schwerner’s upper arms as Schwerner holds him
upright. Chaney’s shirt is lifted across his back on the left side, the tightly stretched fabric
showing the intensity of Schwerner’s grip. Chaney’s head rests between Schwerner’s stomach
and his own shoulder. His face appears to be bleeding, and there is a large red blood stain on his
shirt, near his cheek. Blood also trickles down his hand towards his right wrist, staining
Schwerner’s crisp white shirt. In the foreground, another man lays face down on the ground. At
first glance, one might think this man is already dead. However, his right elbow and hip are
15
Robert Coles, “Ruby Bridges and a Painting,” Maureen Hart-Hennessey and Anne Knutson, eds., Norman
Rockwell: Pictures for the American People (New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1999), 110.
16
This painting is sometimes alternately titled Murder in Mississippi.
28
28
raised and his right hand pushes on the barren ground as though he is trying to lift himself up.
The fingers of his left hand are spread apart, clawing the ground to gain stability. Rather than
depict the murderers as humans, Rockwell instead shows them as six ominous shadows
approaching from the right of the canvas, indicating that the young men are outnumbered. The
desolate landscape of dirt, rocks, and small sticks accentuates the evil of the scene. 17
Although only the murderers really know what happened during the last few moments of
these men’s lives, Rockwell painted a stirring image. Schwerner and Chaney had been working
together for about six months when Goodman joined them on June 21, 1964, his first day in
Mississippi. Goodman and the others volunteered to help provide education, community
programs, and voter registration to Mississippi’s African American communities and to improve
relations between black and white Mississippians. The men spent the afternoon of June 21
visiting the site of a burnt black Methodist church and were stopped by police on their way from
the church for speeding. The police took the men to the county jail and held them until about
10:30 p.m. 18 Once released, Huie alleges that men from two klavens of the White Knights of the
Ku Klux Klan (KKK) followed the youths and killed them shortly thereafter. Their bodies were
buried at a construction site, where they would be temporarily entombed by the dam being built
there. The bodies might never have been found if one of the participants had not eventually
confessed. On August 4, forty-four days after the murder, police unearthed the bodies. 19 Within
days of the men’s initial disappearance, the story made national headlines as President Lyndon
Johnson ordered a massive search. Huie spent the summer of 1964 in Mississippi investigating
the case, and believes that Schwerner was the one whom the murderers most wanted to kill.
17
Marling notes that the “landscape is as surreal as the face of the moon” and that Rockwell referred back to it years
later in his depictions of the moon’s surface in paintings such as Man on the Moon (1967) and The Final
Impossibility: Man’s Tracks on the Moon (1969). Marling, Norman Rockwell, 145.
18
Video: “Mississippi: Is This America? (1963-1964),” Eyes on the Prize (Boston, MA: Blackside, 1986).
19
William Bradford Huie, Three Lives for Mississippi (Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 2000), 119.
29
29
Schwerner had led a boycott in nearby Meridien, Mississippi earlier in the year, and the boycott,
combined with his Jewish heritage, prompted the KKK to target him. However, because Chaney
and Goodman both accompanied Schwerner on the night he was killed, they were also
murdered. 20
Huie published his findings as Three Lives for Mississippi (1965). Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. wrote an introduction and claimed that the book “resurrects from death the meaning of
three fine lives.” 21 Rockwell’s painting has similar intentions. The artist’s moving portrayal of
the volunteers’ murders brings attention to the one-year anniversary of their deaths, reminding
viewers that justice was not served for their killers. 22 More importantly, Rockwell provides
viewers with a haunting, thought-provoking visual representation of the crimes taking place in
their own country. The figures of the victims are well-defined, but the killers are threatening
shadows. Perhaps Rockwell believed that the guilt did not only reside with the men who
murdered, but also with the society that condoned the deaths. The shadows can be interpreted as
a representation of this larger force of guilt. Huie came to a similar conclusion about the killers,
writing that “when a society supports and cannot condemn them, then the society—or the state
itself—may be guilty.” 23 Look again offered Rockwell a chance to paint what mattered the most
to him, another opportunity to admonish racist American society. The editors of Look were so
taken with Rockwell’s initial sketch (Figure 14) for the painting that even after the final version
was completed, they informed Rockwell that they wanted to publish the study instead. The
editors felt that the earlier version's visible brushstrokes and lack of detail offered a powerful,
20
Ibid., 67.
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Introduction,” Three Lives for Mississippi (Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi
Press, 2000), 7.
22
The state of Mississippi never brought the accused killers to trial, but a federal court found seven men guilty of
civil rights violations in connection with the killings. Their sentences were mild, ranging from three to ten years.
“Mississippi: Is This America? (1963-1964).”
23
Huie, 23.
21
30
30
more emotional interpretation of the scene. 24 Rockwell disagreed at first, but eventually allowed
the sketch to be printed. Both images are effective in conveying Rockwell’s message, and both
satisfy his need to make a bold statement about the importance of the civil rights movement.
Rockwell’s third major civil rights painting for Look, New Kids in the Neighborhood
(Figure 15), appeared in the May 16, 1967 issue. 25 Unlike the previous two works Look
commissioned, this painting was not meant to depict a specific historical event. Instead, it
illustrated an article about black settlement in the suburbs. 26 The image shows two sets of
children standing in front of a moving van. One group is composed of an African American boy
and a younger girl, presumably siblings. The second group is composed of two boys and a girl,
all white. The two groups stand apart, each timidly studying the other. Rockwell includes many
parallels between the youths: all the boys have a baseball glove, both girls wear pink hair
ribbons, and both groups are accompanied by pets. The black children have a white cat and the
white children have a black dog. The animals, imitating their owners, also scrutinize one
another. Behind the children, a mover carries a large trunk down the truck’s ramp. He is
oblivious to the dramatic scene taking place, but the painter has hidden a neighbor in the
background who is certainly aware of the scene. The person who lives in the house with the
yellow convertible peeks out from between the curtains at the new neighbors. 27 It is unclear
whether this person is male or female, but the peeping neighbor is undoubtedly white. This
observer might be unhappy with the race of his/her new neighbors, a parent of the white children,
or the person could be a parallel to the viewers of the painting, waiting to see how the two groups
of children react to one another.
24
Tom Rockwell, “Afterword,” Norman Rockwell: My Adventures as an Illustrator (New York, NY: Harry N.
Abrams, 1988), 424.
25
This painting is sometimes alternately titled Negro in the Suburbs.
26
Marling, Norman Rockwell, 144.
27
I have found no other analysis of this painting that mentions this peeping neighbor. However, in my opinion the
presence of the white spectator greatly intensifies the tension of the scene.
31
31
Rockwell uses his familiar format of cute children and realistic details to present a serious
topic that was very relevant to American society. Middle-class blacks were joining their white
counterparts in migrating to suburbs like the one Rockwell depicts, full of neatly cut lawns,
paved sidewalks and driveways, and families with young children. Scenes like this one often
took place when a family joined a neighborhood: the new children might be nervous about
making friends, and the other children are curious about meeting their potential playmates, too.
However, the artist uses the issue of race to differentiate this scene from the innocence of those
he created earlier in his career. Communications scholars Victoria Gallagher and Kenneth S.
Zagacki have studied the visibility and rhetoric of Rockwell’s civil rights era images and
concluded that “Rockwell was using a form of popular illustration with which he was most
comfortable to reach out to mainstream audiences, reminding them of their own moraldemocratic responsibilities in the context of the civil rights debate.”28 Viewers were likely
forced to question not only the immediate futures of the relationships between these children in
the neighborhood, but also what the future holds for them as the next generation of Americans in
a post-civil rights society.
In all three of these paintings, Rockwell depicted the African Americans in a dignified
manner, avoiding racial stereotypes and presenting his characters as individuals. Additionally,
he did not represent any of his African American subjects as threatening to white society.
Bridges and the new kids in the neighborhood are just innocent children who desire the same
types of things as their white counterparts: quality educations, new friends, and happy
childhoods. In Southern Justice Chaney and his fellow volunteers were working towards, and
dying for, the same goals. Gallagher and Zagacki emphasize that “if any person or group is seen
as transgressing or violating social principles and therefore as constituting a real threat to social
28
Gallagher and Zagacki, 185.
32
32
order, it is the hordes of whites that he [Rockwell] often left either implied or cast more directly
in twisted, dark, alien-looking shadows, lurking just outside or at the borders of his paintings.” 29
Rockwell’s images accuse whites of prejudice and recognize the need for peace and civility in
American society. King said of the fight for civil rights in America: “The darkness of the soul of
the South will never fully be dissipated until the passion for justice grips the white Southerner.
The civil rights movement, unlike many colonial revolutions, does not seek to expel the
oppressor: it must attempt to transform him, while it isolates the unregenerate terrorist.” 30
Rockwell was one of many artists creating works inspired by the struggle for civil rights
in America. Artists used a variety of approaches when creating such images and a comparison of
some of these works with those painted by Rockwell reveals a dramatic difference in the way
Rockwell interpreted the events of the civil rights movement versus the ways other artists did. In
1966, the African American artist Alvin Smith (b. 1933) created Neshoba Specter (Figure 16) in
reaction to the slayings of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner that took place in Mississippi’s
Neshoba County. Neshoba Specter is a largely abstract oil painting combined with collage
elements. The names of the victims are scattered around the canvas in stencil-like letters.
Sections of varying colors give the work texture and create a sensation of violence with torn
edges and layers which give the effect of rips in the canvas. Another work related to these same
murders is The Confederacy: Mississippi (1965) (Figure 17). White pop artist Robert Indiana (b.
1928) created this silkscreen print as a bold criticism of the injustices taking place in the state of
Mississippi. The work features a map of Mississippi at its center with the site of the crime,
Philadelphia, marked by a star. Three rings, two of text with a central ring of black stars on a
brown background, surround the map and are situated on a black background. The stenciled text
reads: “Just as in the anatomy of man every nation must have its hind part.” At the bottom of the
29
30
Ibid., 182.
King, 7.
33
33
piece, “Mississippi” is stenciled in white letters. Like the work by Smith, this work clearly refers
to the murders of the three volunteers. However, only Rockwell actually attempts to depict their
murders and represent the three men as individual figures. This direct approach makes it easier
for viewers to connect to the emotion of the scene and might evoke feelings of sympathy more
strongly than anger.
Another method some artists applied to civil rights inspired works was the use of
stereotypical imagery. For instance, African American artist Jeff Donaldson (1932-2004)
painted Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy (1963) (Figure 18), a work that depicts a black
woman being beaten by a white police officer. The woman wears a handkerchief on her head
and an apron tied at her waist, indicating that like the stereotypical character for whom she is
named, she might be a domestic servant. Patton describes Aunt Jemima as “the black mammy
stereotype of the black American woman: a heavy, dark-skinned maternal figure of smiling
demeanor.” 31 This stereotype began in the nineteenth century and remained a favorite with
Americans in the twentieth century. The Aunt Jemima character was often featured in movies or
used in advertisements for kitchenware, but the stereotype’s most pervasive use has been as the
packaging image of Pillsbury’s ‘Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Mix’. 32 Donaldson’s Aunt Jemima,
however, is not the smiling black woman with whom viewers would have been accustomed to
seeing on their pancake mix packaging. This woman is fearful as she lifts her hands to defend
herself from the raised baton of the police officer. Donaldson describes her attacker as the
“Pillsbury Doughboy” and depicts him as being a stereotypically overweight cop. The violent
scene is featured on a background of the American flag. The stripes of the flag, however, are
angled to resemble the arms of the Nazi party’s swastika symbol. Perhaps Donaldson wanted to
remind Americans that violent occurrences of prejudice such as this one are comparable to the
31
32
Patton, 201.
Ibid.
34
34
atrocities that were committed against the Jewish communities in Europe during the Holocaust.
Donaldson’s depiction of this brutal confrontation, like the civil rights scenes Rockwell painted,
evokes the sympathy of viewers while also reminding them of the injustices in their own society.
Donaldson’s use of the flag was similar to the way many other contemporary African
American artists included the national emblem in their works related to civil rights. Patton
believes many artists used the American flag as a symbol of the country’s historical mistreatment
of black people. 33 Works such as Faith Ringgold’s (b. 1930) Flag for the Moon: Die Nigger
(1969) (Figure 19) and David Hammons’s (b. 1943) Injustice Case (1970) (Figure 20) are
excellent examples of the various ways the image of the flag could be applied to art. Ringgold’s
work refers to Black Panther Party leader H. Rap Brown’s use of the term “nigger” to represent
resistance against racism. Ringgold derived the subtitle of her painting from Brown’s book Die
Nigger Die! (1969). 34 The canvas is painted to look like a red, black, and green version of the
American flag. The word “die” is painted over the stars in black and the word “nigger” is
formed by the horizontal stripes of the flag. The title of the work suggests that if the United
States is to declare its progress by placing a flag on the moon, the flag should represent the
crimes being committed against many of the nation’s own citizens. Hammons’s Injustice Case is
a body print encased in an image of the American flag. The body print resembles a photo
negative or x-ray image. The figure in the print is gagged, bound, and tied to the chair at the
waist and legs. The figure is a haunting image, and like some of Rockwell’s works, is based on a
historical event. In 1969, eight men were put on trial in Chicago for conspiracy to cross state
lines and cause disorderly conduct at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. During the
early stages of the trial, the defendant Bobby Seale (b. 1936) asked for the trial to be delayed so
that he could be represented by Charles Garry who was unable to represent Seale because of
33
34
Ibid., 198.
Ibid.
35
35
medical reasons. The judge denied Seale’s request for a postponement, to which Seale
responded by shouting obscenities and being unruly. The judge ordered that Seale be bound and
gagged to a chair. Seale was carried into the courtroom in this manner each day during the
trial. 35 Defense attorney William Kunstler commented on the case, “When they bound and
gagged Seale, of course, that skewered the whole trial. From that point I knew we had it. I saw
the faces on the jury and I knew we couldn’t lose that trial.” 36 Hammons’s depiction of Seale’s
forced silence and restraints represented the wrongs that blacks suffered at the hands of the
American government. The image of the flag clearly places Hammons’s blame for the injustice
on America.
Unlike these contemporary images, Rockwell never used the American flag or negative
stereotypes in any of his civil rights paintings. This allowed the artist to avoid methods which
could easily have become clichés. While his works, like those of Smith, Indiana, Ringgold, and
Hammons, were controversial and influential, Rockwell continued to create images in a style that
the readers of Look would relate to and recognize. He showed the courage of his figures as they
faced opposition and struggled to be accepted and respected. The accessibility of his illustrations
allowed for their wider publication and reception. Unlike the contemporary artists explored here,
Rockwell was already wildly popular with American audiences. The readers of Look were
familiar with Rockwell from his decades at the Saturday Evening Post and must have been more
open to his civil rights images. Rockwell catered to his audience’s tastes, avoiding abstraction,
clichés, and stereotypes that could cause readers to dismiss the images and prevent them from
making a difference in the struggle for racial equality. Furthermore, Rockwell’s detailed realist
depictions have a sense of timelessness. Viewers of today can still understand and relate to these
works, even if they are not as familiar with the specific events which inspired them.
35
36
Ibid., 200.
As quoted in Patton, 200.
36
36
It is certain that Rockwell, like King and so many others, desired to transform the
oppressors of the civil rights movement. The artist wanted his works to have an effect on
viewers, to ignite discussions about race in America, and to contribute to a positive change in the
nation’s society. Gallagher and Zagacki point out that Rockwell’s paintings for Look “visualized
obstacles blacks faced in the particularity of life” 37 and in doing so, these works “make us
recognizable to one another, providing the possibility of breaking out of the social realm of
enforced norms and limited recognition and into the realm where rhetorical efforts can achieve
significance, even a shared public voice.” 38 Influences in Rockwell’s life such as the support of
his wife Molly and his friendship with psychoanalyst Erik Erikson gave the artist the courage
necessary to create such bold images. Furthermore, his partnership with Look provided him with
the professional freedom and a vehicle to reach a wide sector of American society. Cowles said
of his publication, “We believed in people, in their ability to confront and deal rationally and
effectively with problems if presented with information about what was going on.” 39 The
magazine owner also recalled in his memoirs that editor Mich, like Rockwell, had an “absolute
passion” for human rights. 40 In a 1958 public speaking engagement, Mich discussed the issue of
race and prejudice, stating that it resulted in one simple question: “Do we, or do we not, believe
that every American is entitled to the same rights and privileges as every other American? To
make it even shorter, do we believe in treating our fellow man as we expect to be treated?” 41
Rockwell’s images ask viewers this same question.
In a 1962 interview with Esquire, Rockwell admitted, “I was born a white Protestant with
some prejudices which I am continuously trying to eradicate. I am angry at unjust prejudices, in
37
Gallagher and Zagacki, 180.
Ibid., 193.
39
Cowles, 203.
40
Ibid., 200.
41
Ibid., 201.
38
37
37
other people or myself.” 42 The painter converted this anger into powerful representations of
prejudice. Rockwell was dissatisfied with works such as his Post covers, fearing that they lacked
the significant subject matter and visual impact of the works of a great painter, a true artist,
should possess. His son Tom remembers that his father was “always looking for the ‘big
picture,’ an important subject which would help make the pictures he painted of it important, lift
them above the level of his ordinary work.” 43 In his paintings of civil rights era images of the
1960s, Rockwell had at last, seven decades into his life, found his “big pictures.” Marling adds
that such images fulfilled what Rockwell referred to as his “hankering after immortality.” 44
Indeed, Rockwell established a lasting legacy in the art history of our nation with these works,
contributing to the momentum of the civil rights movement and encouraging Americans to face
the racial prejudice that existed in their society, a prejudice that he refused to ignore any longer.
42
Quoted in Marling, Norman Rockwell,140.
Tom Rockwell, 418.
44
Marling, Norman Rockwell,139.
43
38
38
Chapter Three
“Stretching my Neck like a Swan”: The Evolution of Rockwell’s “Big Pictures”
While working for Look, Rockwell’s personal opinions concerning the Civil Rights
movement became apparent in the three Look illustrations discussed in Chapter Two. However,
more subtle hints of Rockwell’s support of African Americans’ struggle for equality exist in
works created for the Saturday Evening Post such as Freedom of Worship (1943) and Golden
Rule (1961), as well as in other commissions such as illustrations featured in Look: Peace Corps
(1966), and Right to Know (1968). Rockwell also created a commission for a major civil rights
activist group, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) entitled Blood Brothers (circa 1965-68)
(Figure 21)—which is further proof of Rockwell’s strong support of racial equality in American
society. Although scholars have explored these compositions less frequently, they are important
evidence of Rockwell’s passion for civil rights. They demonstrate an evolution of Rockwell’s
“big pictures” and the various approaches he used to demonstrate racial tolerance.
After the United States became involved in World War II, Rockwell wanted to show his
support of the American war effort. The painter, himself a Navy veteran, served as art editor of
the Naval Reserve Bases publication Afloat and Ashore during World War I in Charleston, South
Carolina. 1 When World War II began, Rockwell, like many artists, used his talents to create
images that inspired patriotism and allegiance to American troops. 2 The artist painted some of
his most popular compositions such as the “Willie Gillis” series (1941-46), Rosie the Riveter
(1943), and the “Four Freedoms” series (1943) during this period. Rockwell produced these
types of images not only for the Saturday Evening Post, but also for war posters commissioned
1
Laurie Norton Moffatt, “Biographical Outline,” Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue vol. 1 (Stockbridge,
MA: The Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge and the University Press of New England, 1986), xxxiv.
2
Other examples of World War II art include J. Howard Miller’s We Can Do It! (Rosie the Riveter) (1942), C.C.
Beall’s Keep ‘em Flying! (1941), Glenn Earnest’s He’s Watching You (1942), and Mead Schaeffer’s Time Saved on
Your Job Saves Lives on His! (1943).
39
by various government offices. The artist’s role as one of America’s best-known illustrators
made him a natural choice to generate powerful images that would rouse the spirits of the
American public. Magazine designer Milton Glaser recalled that, “All Rockwell’s imagery of
that period either dealt with the nostalgia and yearnings of the time or with myths that gave
people the strength needed to win the war. He was absolutely spectacular. It’s hard to imagine
that period without Rockwell.” 3
The Four Freedoms comprised one of Rockwell’s most successful contributions to the
war effort, helping to promote the sale of $132,992,539 in war bonds. 4 Rockwell derived the
series from Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill’s Atlantic Charter, issued in
August 1941, which emphasized to the Allied forces that the war was being fought to preserve
four basic freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom
from fear. 5 Initially, Rockwell took his sketches for the series to a variety of government
offices in Washington, D.C., hoping that the government would be able to use the work as
promotional posters for the war effort. Rockwell was not interested in being paid for the
commission; he only wanted to support his country. Robert Patterson, the Undersecretary of
War, informed Rockwell that the War Department would not be able to print the images. He told
the artist, “We just don’t have the time to spare to arrange it. I think they’d be a fine
contribution. We’d be delighted if someone would publish them.” 6
3
Glaser, 41-42. In this same article, Glaser also notes Rockwell’s familiarity with art history. For Rosie the Riveter,
Rockwell used the figure of the prophet Isaiah from the Sistine Chapel. He used another pose depicted by
Michelangelo in The Recruit (1966), in which a football player’s pose is based on a statue of Guiliano de’ Medici.
4
Norman Rockwell, 317.
5
Marker, 88.
6
Norman Rockwell, 313.
40
After being rejected by numerous officials, a discouraged Rockwell decided to take the
images “back to my beloved Post.” 7 Indeed, editor Ben Hibbs was impressed by the sketches
and agreed to print the series as four consecutive covers in February and March of 1943. 8 They
were also reproduced as posters included in the magazine and they were so popular that they
became the most reproduced paintings in the world. 9 The posters were hung in public places
such as schools, diners, government buildings, hotels, churches, and bars. 10 Some Americans
were even able to view the actual oil paintings for the series. Hibbs informed Rockwell that over
1,222,000 people attended exhibitions of the paintings during a sixteen-city American tour. 11
One of the works, Freedom of Worship (Figure 22), is often flagged by critics as the least
effective in this series. Compositionally, it is completely different from the other three images.
Instead of depicting a narrative scene, the work shows eight people in profile, many of whom
have their hands clasped in prayer. At the top of the painting, Rockwell includes the text in
capital letters: “Each according to the dictates of his own conscience.” 12 The dark-haired man
near the upper left holds his right hand to his chin, as though he is in contemplation. The woman
just below him clasps a rosary and an older married woman bows her head reverently in prayer,
while a man in the lower right holds a book, presumably a religious text such as the Holy Bible
or the Koran. These people are of varying ages and though most are white, Rockwell does
include an older African American woman in the upper left. Her presence is an example of
7
“I Like to Please People,” Time, Vol. 41 (June 21, 1943): 41-42. (from the Time archive online, p. 2 of 3 of
electronically reproduced print article).
8
Rusbridger, 12.
9
Marker, 88.
10
Rusbridger, 12.
11
Norman Rockwell, 317.
12
Rockwell thought of the phrase without knowing whether it had a source. He was concerned the wording might
be copyrighted. After the Post published the image, the artist learned from the letters of readers that the phrase was
akin to one from Mormon leader Joseph Smith’s nineteenth-century text “Principles of Worship.” Stuart Murray
and James McCabe, eds. Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms: Images that Inspire a Nation (Stockbridge, MA:
Berkshire House, 1993), 50.
41
Rockwell’s desire to represent African Americans as equals in American society. Although she
is partially obscured both by a white man’s head and the text and could be interpreted as
peripheral, I attribute her marginalization in the painting to the date when Rockwell created the
work and the source which made the commission. In 1943 the Civil Rights movement had not
yet begun. Many of the Saturday Evening Post readers, as well as the editors (both largely
white), would not have been receptive to an image which prominently featured a black woman.
Although it is unknown why Rockwell chose to crop the black woman’s head, an African
American was a part of his earliest sketches for the painting. Rockwell struggled with
preliminary ideas for several months before conceiving the idea of a grouping of profiles. In the
initial sketches for the series, Freedom of Worship was a narrative scene in a barbershop (Figure
23). Four men—a Jewish customer in the chair, a Yankee barber, and a Catholic priest and an
African American man waiting their turn—all enjoy a conversation together. Rockwell
abandoned this idea when people had difficulty interpreting the subject and questioned the ethnic
stereotypes of the characters. 13 In his memoirs, Rockwell recalled that “the picture was further
complicated by my desire to say something about tolerance. I wanted it to make the statement
that no man should be discriminated against regardless of his race or religion.” 14 The artist noted
his frustrations with the task: “It was a job that should have been tackled by Michelangelo.” 15
The difficulty Rockwell encountered caused him to pursue the new composition, focusing on
faces and hands.
13
Marling, Norman Rockwell, 1894-1978: America’s Most Beloved Painter, 38.
Norman Rockwell, 315. The African American man is partially obscured by the barber’s elbow, making it
difficult to ascertain his race. However, in his autobiography Rockwell specifically refers to the man sitting to the
right of the priest as being African American and notes the dissatisfaction many blacks had with the depiction of the
man: “And the negroes thought the Negro’s skin should be lighter or darker.” Although it is possible that Rockwell
created more than one study, the details he provides in his memoirs clearly refer to the study discussed here.
15
Murray and McCabe, eds., 48. Rockwell likely was referring to the enormous pressure he felt to illustrate the
abstract principles of freedom in a way that his fellow Americans would understand and appreciate. In addition, he
worked exclusively on the project for several months, just as Michelangelo’s focus on the Sistine Chapel was longterm.
14
42
The popularity and success of the “Four Freedoms” series prompted Roderick Stephens,
Chairman of the Bronx Interracial Conference, to attempt to persuade Rockwell to paint a series
promoting interracial relations. As a result of the Great Migration, blacks were increasingly
moving into the borough and Stephens feared that violence, even a race riot, might occur. Race
riots had recently occurred in Houston, Los Angeles, and Detroit. 16 Stephens wrote to Rockwell:
“Out of our various meetings, discussions and resulting program, a suggestion has developed
which seems to us to have distinct possibilities. You, perhaps, are the key person in the
matter.” 17 Stephens admired the “Four Freedoms” series and believed that two of the freedoms,
“Freedom from Want” and “Freedom from Fear,” “crystallized in the minds of Negroes the
realization of freedoms denied in large measure to most of them.” 18 To combat such intolerance,
he suggested a series of paintings that would be printed as posters, just as the “Four Freedoms”
had been. The subject matter of the reproductions would illustrate the contribution of blacks to
American society and would complement the Four Freedoms by showing how blacks helped to
realize them. Stephens assured Rockwell of his confidence in the painter:
I believe you, individually, can make a contribution of more significance perhaps
than any other single individual….You can thus advance racial good-will [sic] by
years, and in making a reality of what, in the minds of the many, is now only a
restricted conception of freedom, you will be making a contribution of
immeasurable significance to the nation of today and the world of tomorrow. 19
The artist replied to Stephens, but never embarked on an official series. It is likely that although
Rockwell sympathized with Stephens, the idea of creating such a series was too burdensome
16
Roderick Stephens, Letter to Norman Rockwell, July 12, 1943 (Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Archives at
the Norman Rockwell Museum): 2. It is unclear who Stephens wanted to publish the poster series. The idea’s
development never progressed that far.
17
Stephens, Cover Letter to Norman Rockwell, July 12, 1943 (Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Archives at the
Norman Rockwell Museum): 1.
18
Stephens, Letter to Norman Rockwell, July 12, 1943: 1.
19
Ibid.: 2.
43
after the difficulty he experienced while painting the “Four Freedoms.” 20 Scholars Judy L.
Larson and Maureen Hart Hennessey attribute the series never being realized to the Post’s
reluctance concerning the representation of blacks. 21
After turning down this commission, Rockwell was given another opportunity to support
civil rights for blacks in 1946. The artist and his second wife Mary became friends with John
and Dorothy Canfield Fisher, who also were residing in Arlington, Vermont at the time. The
Fishers, like the Rockwells, were involved with the local literary scene, such as the library board
and book clubs. During the summer, the two couples sent a letter to the president of the nearby
University of Vermont in support of a sorority which had recently integrated by admitting an
African American student. Rockwell and the others informed the president of their satisfaction
with the liberal decision made by the women of Alpha Xi Delta, emphasizing that they took
“great pleasure in learning from their action, that there is still vitality in Vermont’s old, humane
tradition of fair play to all, and that each individual shall be valued—or not—only on his
personal worth.” 22 The dean of women at the school replied to the letter and informed the
Rockwells and Fishers that their unsolicited support of the integration was a welcome and
refreshing contrast to the criticism others continued to send on a daily basis. 23 Rockwell was
willing to make his true feelings about racial equality publicly known. He was a famous
illustrator and respected citizen who wanted to make others aware of his beliefs and recognize
the accomplishments of groups such as the integrated sorority.
20
Stephens, Letter to Norman Rockwell, September 1, 1943 (Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Archives at the
Norman Rockwell Museum): 2. Only Stephens’ letters to Rockwell are known. However, based on Stephens’
second letter to Rockwell, it appears that the artist rejected the series and told Stephens of the difficulties
encountered creating the “Four Freedoms” series.
21
Judy L. Larson and Maureen Hart Hennessey, “Norman Rockwell: A New Viewpoint,” Hart-Hennessey and Anne
Knutson, eds., Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People (New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1999), 43.
22
Claridge, 340.
23
Ibid.
44
A few years later, Rockwell again returned to the style of composition used for Freedom
of Worship in 1961 when he completed Golden Rule (Figure 24). Rockwell greatly admired the
United Nations (UN) and wanted to complete a painting which demonstrated the cultural, racial,
and religious tolerance of the organization. The painter said of the UN: “I sincerely wanted to do
a picture which would help the world out of the mess it’s in. And as it seemed to me that the
United Nations was our only hope, I decided to do a picture of a scene at the UN.” 24 Rockwell
visited the Security Council Chamber of the UN and created a charcoal drawing of seated
delegates debating in a brightly lit foreground (Figure 25). To the rear of delegates from the
United States, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and Chile in the
shadows of the composition, were sixty-five men, women, and children from around the world,
many in their native dress. Rockwell was unsatisfied with the work and hid it away in his studio
until he derived Golden Rule from it eight years later. 25 He considered the original UN idea one
of his greatest failures because it never progressed further than a study, 26 more evidence of the
importance Rockwell attributed to tolerance of other cultures, religions, and races.
For Golden Rule, Rockwell used characters from the original charcoal sketch and created
a smaller painting without the delegates in the foreground. Once more, he engaged text to make
his message clear, using the biblically-based phrase “Do unto others as you would have them do
24
Norman Rockwell, 349.
Murray and McCabe, eds., 97.
26
According to Rockwell biographer Donald Walton, Rockwell was unable to complete the original UN painting
because he encountered many obstacles trying to paint the four UN delegates representing the United States, the
United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and Chile. The Russian delegate continually refused to
model for the painting and Rockwell was not satisfied with the “pompous and unfriendly” appearance of the
American delegate. When the Russian delegate was replaced shortly after Rockwell had finally convinced the
original delegate to model, instead of trying to paint the new delegate, the artist decided, “To hell with the whole
project.” The original charcoal cartoon was relegated to storage until Rockwell resurrected parts of it for Golden
Rule. From Donald Walton, A Rockwell Portrait: An Intimate Biography (Kansas City, KS: Sheed Andrews and
McMeel, Inc., 1978), 189-192.
25
45
unto you.” 27 Commonly referred to as “the golden rule,” Rockwell paints the text to appear as
though it is gilded onto the painting. Although more of the figures’ bodies are visible, the
composition is reminiscent of that of Freedom of Worship. 28 Two African Americans are
represented in the tightly-packed crowd. One is a young girl in the foreground wearing a school
uniform who clasps her right fist in her left hand as she embraces her schoolbooks. In the upper
right, a black man looks ahead at the viewer. He appears to be middle-class, evidenced by his
button-down white dress shirt and bright green tie. By representing the two African Americans
as apparently educated, hard-working individuals, Rockwell presents a positive portrayal and
avoids traditional stereotypes. The young girl symbolizes the beginning stages of education and
the older man with a professional job depicts the rewards of education. Marling emphasizes the
prominence of Africans (such as the young boy holding a bowl near the center of the painting)
and African Americans, noting that it is “as if, after years of following tacit editorial taboos
against depicting people of color, Rockwell had decided to follow his own conscience in the
matter of integrating a Post cover.” 29 The painting’s message reminds viewers of Rockwell’s
desire to treat others with the dignity and respect every individual deserves. The painting was
featured on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on April 1, 1961. In the past, Rockwell’s
April Fool’s Day covers were some of the reader’s favorites, challenging them to find the
humorous anomalies the artist included. However, by the 1960s, Rockwell was too frustrated
with the “mess” of the world to create another humorous image and instead chose the more
27
This commonly-used phrase is based on the scriptures Matthew 7:12 (NIV): “So in everything, do to others what
you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” and Luke 6:31 (NIV): “Do to others as
you would have them do to you.” However, variations of the phrase are found in the teachings of several world
religions, making Rockwell’s composition composed of people of varying cultures even more appropriate.
28
Many of the Arlington, Vermont neighbors who modeled for Freedom of Worship also appear in Golden Rule.
29
Marling, Norman Rockwell, 1894-1978: America’s Most Beloved Painter, 84. Other identifiable cultures include
Japanese, Chinese, and Indian.
46
serious subjects of open-mindedness and acceptance. 30 The image was well-received by the
public and the UN commissioned a mosaic of the painting for its headquarters in New York. 31
A work that is most similar to Golden Rule is Right to Know (1968) (Figure 26). The oil
painting was converted into an illustration which debuted in the August 20, 1968 “Politics 1968”
themed-issue of Look. 32 Tensions between Americans and the government were growing
because of the controversy surrounding the Vietnam War and increasing liberalism. 33 A mass of
diverse people stand behind what is likely a judge’s bench and large, empty leather chair. At the
left in the front row, a single child is depicted in his mother’s arms amongst the adults who range
from young to old. The group seems confrontational, their stares questioning, perhaps even
accusing, the authority which represents or evaluates them. Scholar Dana Rosen interprets the
people in the image as saying, “We are the governed, remember, but we govern too.” 34
Rockwell includes representatives of various ethnic groups, several of whom are African
Americans. Two young men are standing in the center of the group’s front row, dressed in
brown pullovers with white dress shirts and ties beneath. Both hold books and look at the
viewer. These youths may be interpreted as parallels of one another because of their similar
dress, props, and height. The major difference between the two is their race: one is black and the
other is white. Rockwell’s placement of them at the center of the composition stresses their
equality. Also in the crowd is the artist, unmistakable on the far right with his trademark pipe,
standing just behind the young woman in the bright pink tunic. His inclusion of a self-portrait
emphasizes his concern with contemporary political issues. Author Christopher Finch notes that
30
Norman Rockwell, 349. The “mess” refers to Rockwell’s quotation concerning his picture for the UN.
Murray and McCabe, eds., caption for color plate Golden Rule (1961), unnumbered pages.
32
Stories in the issue included articles about political candidates and Vietnam.
33
Sonder, 127.
34
Dana Rosen, ed. Norman Rockwell: The Artist and His Work, The Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge
(New York, NY: Friedman/Fairfax Publishers, 1995), 110.
31
47
it made sense for the artist to include himself because his “entire career is on the line. Only the
continuing success of the democratic process can justify it.” 35
Another painting employing the use of a large arrangement of people is Peace Corps
(Figure 27) published on the cover of Look June 14, 1966. 36 Much like Freedom of Worship, the
work shows heads of a group of people, all shown in profile looking towards the left while a
bright light illuminates their faces. In the upper left is President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (19171963) who established the Peace Corps in 1961. Rockwell had painted Kennedy’s portrait in
1960 for a Post cover when he was a presidential candidate. 37 Scholar Richard Halpern notes
that “Rockwell threw himself into Kennedy’s various enthusiasms: his illustrations for Look
depicted civil rights, the Peace Corps, astronauts. All were ‘progressive’ projects that were also
colonizing activities.” 38 Peace Corps is the artist’s tribute to the optimism that Kennedy’s
presidency created. The painter traveled to Ethiopia, India, and Colombia in 1966 to witness
Americans in the Peace Corps firsthand and he created several narrative scenes of them at work
with people from those countries. For Peace Corps, Rockwell depicted those who had actually
served overseas as models. 39 One of the models was a young African American woman, placed
in the upper right of the composition directly behind Kennedy. She is an example of the ways in
which African Americans were making positive contributions to society and the progress
Kennedy had inspired.
As is evidenced by images such as Freedom to Worship, Golden Rule, Right to Know,
and Peace Corps, a mass of people functioned as a compositional device that proved very
35
Christopher Finch, Norman Rockwell’s America (New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1975), 176.
This painting is sometimes alternately titled JFK’s Bold Legacy or JFK’s Bold Legacy—The Peace Corps.
37
This portrait of Kennedy actually ran twice as a Saturday Evening Post cover. It was originally published in
1960, and was featured on the cover once more in 1963 shortly after the president’s assassination. This portrait is
the only Saturday Evening Post Cover to appear twice and was also Rockwell’s final Saturday Evening Post cover.
38
Richard Halpern, Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
2006), 128.
39
Margaret T. Rockwell, 111.
36
48
successful when Rockwell wanted to create a “big picture,” and one that he continued to use in
images such as How Goes the War on Poverty?(1965) (Figure 28) and Apollo and Beyond (1969)
(Figure 29). Particularly when trying to express ideas of racial tolerance, the artist struggled
with ways to depict his subject as a narrative. Rockwell biographer Ben Sonder notes:
Certainly if there is blame for such a failing, it must be laid not upon Rockwell
per se but upon America’s history of segregation and racial separation. There
were at that time a limited number of situations in which people of different
ethnicities intimately related. For an artist used to anecdotes that centered around
family life, it was difficult to dream up scenarios in which members of different
races could purposefully interact. 40
While these compositions are peaceful and subtle, Rockwell was also quite capable of
very direct, even gruesome narrative scenes. Around 1968, CORE requested that the artist
design a Christmas card. 41 CORE was a leftist civil rights organization founded by students at
the University of Chicago in 1942. The entity had expanded rapidly and became a national
organization in its first year. The group protested against segregation in public places and
organized sit-ins as a nonviolent form of resistance. CORE also pioneered jail-ins and freedom
rides. Initially the group focused its activities primarily in northern public facilities. However,
as racial tensions in the South escalated, it began to center its energies there. During the early
1960s, CORE members participated in Kennedy’s Voter Education Project, co-sponsored the
1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his legendary “I Have a
Dream” speech, and in 1964 it supplied volunteers for “Freedom Summer.” Chaney, Goodman,
and Schwerner, the three murdered volunteers Rockwell depicted in Southern Justice, were all
members of CORE. 42 This, and Rockwell’s other powerful civil rights paintings, likely
prompted CORE to choose Rockwell to design its Christmas card. However, instead of sending
40
Sonder, 125.
Claridge, 472.
42
“The History of CORE,” from the official website of Congress of Racial Equality: http://www.coreonline.org/History/history.htm. Accessed 24 February 2007.
41
49
the group an image in celebration of the holiday season, Rockwell sent a painting of two slain
men, Blood Brothers (circa 1965-68) (Figure 30, color study Figure 31).43 Two men, one white
and one black, lie side by side on the ground in a pool of their own blood. The outer arms of the
men are outstretched and their inner arms touch. Their heads are angled backward, enabling the
viewer to fully see their faces. The eyes of the African American man are still open, revealing a
vacant death stare. The blood draining from the men’s heads signifies that at the deepest levels,
the individuals are equals, despite their skin color. They wear the uniform of the United States
Marines and their helmets lay at the margins of the image. CORE was delighted with the image,
despite not having a traditional Norman Rockwell Christmas card design.
Blood Brothers was actually a painting that Rockwell began around 1965 for Look.
However, the editors of the magazine never chose to use the illustration. One of the editors, an
African American and ex-soldier, described the image as “patronizing.” 44 He did not believe
that the work expressed what he believed was the “important point—that in Vietnam, there was
no racial prejudice.” 45 The first version which Rockwell submitted to the editors did not show
the men as Marines (Figure 32). Instead, the African American man wore denim pants, a white
shirt, and sneakers. The white man wore khaki pants, a blue shirt, and lace-up boots. Three
studies depict this version while another variation and the final version given to CORE depict the
men in uniform. Rockwell, desperate to get the image published, wrote to his friend, psychiatrist
Robert Coles: “The reason I am writing to you is because I know you really have a deep
understanding of the negro’s feeling about the civil rights issue. Could I impose on you to look
43
Claridge, 472. Claridge describes the painting given to CORE as an image depicting two slain civil rights leaders.
However, the Norman Rockwell Catalogue lists image M145, a version of Blood Brothers featuring two United
States Marines killed in battle, as the painting Rockwell gave to CORE. Other preparatory versions of the piece
show the men in street clothes, meaning they could be civil rights workers or perhaps people killed in a ghetto.
44
Ibid.
45
Ibid.
50
at the two photographs and perhaps you have some suggestion as to what the negro editor felt
was condescending.” 46 Coles later said of Rockwell’s concern about offending or causing others
pain, “I was just truly impressed at his intelligence and sensitivity to people.” 47 Despite seeking
Coles’s advice, Rockwell was not able to adapt the image enough to satisfy the editors at Look.
When CORE requested a Christmas card design, Rockwell must have felt it the perfect
opportunity to complete the painting and share it with others. Had the painter not given the
finished canvas to CORE, it might have become just another entry of an unpublished work in
Rockwell’s catalogue. 48
Emboldened by the success of the Four Freedoms series, Rockwell frequently created
images which dealt with serious subject matter and continued to promote racial tolerance in
many of these paintings. However, he was humble and never admitted to being satisfied with the
images he produced on this subject. In his memoirs published in 1961 he wrote:
Every so often I try to paint the BIG picture, something serious and colossal
which will change the world, save mankind. Humor’s all right, I say to myself,
but if I’m to be remembered I’ll have to do something significant, a picture which
will reflect the large view, which will have a memorable subject. So I exchange
my gentle old back-yard plug for a prancing, majestic stallion and my customary
blue work shirt for a coat of shining armor. And before I know it I’m sprawled on
the ground with my nose in the mud, battered and bruised.
I just can’t handle world-shattering subjects. They’re beyond me, above me. Not
that I ever stop trying. I’m very forgetful of my failures, and every new idea fills
me with hope. This is the one, I say to myself, this is it; I’ve never had an idea
like this. And off I go, stretching my neck like a swan and forgetting that I’m a
duck. And pretty soon all I’ve got for my pains is a crick in the neck, a batch of
useless photographs, a sheaf of useless sketches. 49
46
Ibid., 473.
Ibid.
48
Many of Rockwell’s works are unpublished, such as studies and sketches. Rockwell often gave original pieces to
models or friends, making it extremely difficult to ascertain how many compositions there are total, as well as how
many are unpublished. The Norman Rockwell Catalogue features over 4000 works total.
49
Norman Rockwell, 349.
47
51
After publishing his memoirs, Rockwell began working for Look two years later and had
more freedom than ever to create images about the social and political issues of the day. His
confidence increased while working for Look and he produced some of his strongest images
promoting racial tolerance during this period of his career. In 1974, Rockwell gave an interview
in which he reflected on the paintings he completed concerning social issues. The interviewer,
Douglas Cooper, asked Rockwell if the shift to more social issues was a result of the changing
times, the changing artist, or the changing assignments. Rockwell responded that he “got very
much interested in” such issues and one that continued to intrigue him was “the equality of the
races.” He continued: “The black people and the white people were having, you know, it was
difficult for the black people. And so I, for Look magazine, I painted a picture for instance of a
little girl being escorted to school by four federal agents…I was very, very strong on this and I
did a number of pictures to try to express my feelings on it.” 50 Rockwell also commented on this
topic in an earlier interview (1971) for New York Times Magazine. He told writer Richard
Reeves, “I was doing the racial thing for awhile. But that’s deadly now—nobody wants it.” 51
Rockwell biographer Thomas Buechner justifies the painter’s avoidance of racial issues early in
his career, as well as in the last years of his life: “Millions of people have been moved by his
picture stories…To be popular with such an audience requires a very special kind of artist. He
has to hide all personal opinions, causes, and preferences that his readers might not share.” 52
Although at times the reaction of the public and publishers was discouraging, the artist
strove to be an advocate for compassion and goodwill, using his tools of brush and canvas and
his power as a popular illustrator whose images would be seen by millions of readers. Although
50
Norman Rockwell, “Distinguished Contemporary Norman Rockwell.” Tape recording, January 1972 (Sound
Perspectives, Inc., New York, NY).
51
Reeves, 42. Rockwell likely used the term “deadly” to describe how it was difficult to find publishers for such
works, thus pursuing them might have brought one’s career to an end.
52
As quoted by Reeves, 42.
52
scholars previously have not examined the works in this chapter as evidence of Rockwell’s
promotion of racial tolerance, they clearly show his dedication to the subject and his desire to
remind Americans of the flaws in their society.
53
Conclusion
Today, Rockwell remains one of America’s most beloved artists, nearly thirty years after
his death. Reproductions of his paintings still adorn the walls of public places such as schools,
churches, and office buildings. Calendars, Christmas cards, stationary, and a multitude of
collectibles frequently feature some of Rockwell’s most beloved Saturday Evening Post covers.
The popularity of Rockwell’s images remains so strong that contemporary viewers, even a
generation of Americans born after his death, are familiar with his work. “Rockwellian” has
become an adjective used commonly in speech and publications, indicating the sense of nostalgia
or idealized imagery the artist conveyed in his magazine covers and illustrations. Contemporary
Americans can collect their favorite Rockwell images on mugs or plates, use the Microsoft Word
font Rockwell based on the artist’s style of lettering, and wealthy Americans can collect the
artist’s original paintings. Two leading collectors of Rockwell’s art are billionaire H. Ross Perot
(b. 1930) and film director Steven Spielberg (b. 1946). 1
When the Norman Rockwell museum opened its new facility in 1993, a critic from the
Washington Post wrote: “It’s a curious thing to say about one of the most visible, competent and
widely loved painters of our century, but Norman Rockwell has been stiffed. It’s time to open
up the canon—time to let him in.” 2 Indeed, in the years since the museum opened, the articles
and books published on Rockwell have increasingly reevaluated his place in art history.
Scholars are exploring issues such as gender, rhetoric, politics, class, and race. The success of
the “Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People” exhibition and the discussion it fueled
1
Beem, 136. Spielberg, a former Eagle Scout, first became interested in Rockwell’s illustrations for Boy Scout
Manual as a youth. The film director owns more than a dozen original Rockwell oil paintings, including Russian
Schoolroom (1967) which was stolen in 1973 from a gallery in Clayton, Missouri and sold to Spielberg over a
decade later, who did not know the painting was stolen. The work was discovered in March 2007 after one of
Spielberg’s staff saw the piece on the FBI’s Art Theft website. Spielberg is a trustee of the Norman Rockwell
Museum and gave the lead gift for the institution’s new facility, the Steven Spielberg/Time Warner Communications
Building.
2
Rusbridge, 15.
54
are strong indicators of the changing opinions of the art world. 3 Sociologist Herbert J. Gans
describes the process currently taking place:
Beyond initial abandonment by the folk, cultural elevation requires yet another
ingredient: the blessing of institutional and individual guardians of high-culture
standards. Those guardians will not embrace an artist who once had a mass
audience without at least partially reinterpreting the artist. Such reinterpretation
often will involve seeing a previously unnoticed quality in the work. The
unnoticed quality may be in the work, the critics’ perception, or both. The bottom
line is: The critic must conclude that the artist was more ‘serious’ than heretofore
thought. 4
Rockwell’s controversial and influential Civil Rights images exemplify this “serious”
quality to which Gans refers. Rockwell boldly resigned from the Saturday Evening Post, eager
to start anew and begin working for Look in 1964 at the age of sixty-nine. As he approached the
end of his life he became increasingly concerned about the way his work would be remembered.
Fearful of being dismissed as a mere illustrator, Rockwell sought to create “big pictures” in
paintings about the Civil Rights movement. He found the immortality he aspired for depicting
the inner strength of a first-grader as she integrated her school alone, conveying the camaraderie
of three young men united in their mission and in their deaths, and reminding readers of the
awkward confrontations taking place between blacks and whites as Americans moved into a
post-Civil Rights era. These works offer a striking contrast to Rockwell’s earlier depictions of
African Americans as stereotypical characters such as a banjo player entertaining a child, a
shoeshine boy polishing the shoes of a white businessman, a porter weighed down with the
luggage of holiday travelers, or a friendly waiter in a dining car. The painter was restricted by
Saturday Evening Post editor Lorimer’s demands that he only show blacks in roles of service, as
3
The exhibition toured the United States from November 1999 until February 2002. Venues on the exhibition’s
itinerary included the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Chicago Historical Society, the Corcoran Gallery of Art
in Washington, D.C., the San Diego Museum of Art, the Phoenix Art Museum, the Norman Rockwell Museum at
Stockbridge, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
4
Gans, 41.
55
well as American society’s preference for these types of images. As his frustrations with these
limitations increased he began to show hints of his true feelings, illustrating the four freedoms,
the golden rule, concepts of democracy, and the equality realized in the death of two soldiers,
one black and one white. Rockwell biographer Thomas Buechner reflected on the major
transition in the artist’s work in the sixty-year retrospective catalogue of his paintings: “There
was a big difference. Instead of painting cheerleaders he painted integration; instead of peace
and prosperity, he painted poverty, protest, and the Peace Corps.”5
In addition to the so-called “Rockwell revival” taking place in scholarship, this study is
relevant in light of recent events related to the Civil Rights Movement. Several important figures
from the Civil Rights era such as Rosa Parks (1913-2005) and Coretta Scott King (1927-2006)
have recently passed away, reminding contemporary citizens of their heroism and bravery. Just
as American society today recognizes the accomplishments of the Civil Rights leaders, society is
also attempting to reconcile its past and prosecute those responsible for some of the most
gruesome crimes of this period. In June of 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was tried by the state of
Mississippi for his role in the deaths of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in 1964 and was
convicted on three counts of manslaughter. At the age of eighty, Killen was sentenced to twenty
years in prison for each of the three deaths. The trial made media headlines and sparked debate
about delayed prosecution. Rockwell’s painting Southern Justice reminds contemporary
Americans of the evil acts of hatred that offenders such as Killen committed and the need for
justice, no matter how late. Rockwell’s Civil Rights imagery remains relevant and inspiring as
African Americans and other minorities continue to struggle for equality in American society.
5
Buechner, 114.
56
Although great strides towards equality have been made since the 1960s, racism still exists in
American society. It is still a “problem we all live with.” 6
Rockwell spent the final years of his career “hankering after immortality.” His son Peter
recalled his father’s frustrations with the public’s understanding of his work: “People were
always saying to him, ‘I don’t know anything about art, but I like your work.’ He used to say, ‘I
wish sometime someone would come up to me and say, ‘I know a lot about art and I like your
work.’” 7 Unfortunately, Rockwell never lived to see the acceptance of his work by scholars,
critics, and museum professionals. He undoubtedly would be pleased that his work is finally
being taken seriously. It is my desire that this study will further the legacy of this significant
American artist and contribute to the establishment of his deserved place in the canon of
American art history.
6
As I write this, two of the main headlines of the day relate directly to racial relations in the United States. One
news story involves radio talk show host Don Imus’s on-air racist and sexist remarks about the women of the
Rutgers University basketball team, runners-up in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s championship
game. The other headline is the integration of an Ashburn, Georgia high school’s prom. White and black students
have always sponsored separate unofficial proms, but in 2007 the school will sponsor an official, integrated prom.
The headlines for April 10, 2007 are evidence that racial harmony is not yet a reality in American society.
7
Beem, 137.
57
Illustrations
Figure 1
Banjo Player
Illustration for Pratt & Lambert in The Saturday Evening Post (April 3, 1926)
Oil on canvas, 72.5 cm x 69 cm
Collection of Pratt & Lambert, Inc.
©1926 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing Co. Indianapolis, IN
All rights reserved www.curtispublishing.com
58
DUE TO COPYRIGHT
RESTRICTIONS, THIS IMAGE IS
NOT AVAILABLE WITH THIS
DOCUMENT.
I ENCOURAGE YOU TO
CONSULT THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
FOR SOURCES WHICH INCLUDE
THIS IMAGE.
Figure 2
Henry Ossawa Tanner
The Banjo Lesson
1893
Oil on canvas, 89 cm x 123 cm
Hampton University Museum Collection
59
Figure 3
Thataway
Cover for The Saturday Evening Post (March 17, 1934)
Medium unknown, dimensions unknown
Whereabouts unknown
©1934 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing Co. Indianapolis, IN
All rights reserved www.curtispublishing.com
60
Figure 4
Love Ouanga
Illustration for short story in American Magazine (June 1936)
Oil on canvas, 76 cm x 157.5 cm
Private collection
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
61
Figure 5
Full Treatment
Cover for The Saturday Evening Post (May 18, 1940)
Oil on canvas, 109 cm x 89 cm
New York, NY, Collection of Judy and Alan Goffman Fine Art
©1940 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing Co. Indianapolis, IN
All rights reserved www.curtispublishing.com
62
Figure 6
Boy in a Dining Car
Cover for The Saturday Evening Post (December 7, 1946)
Oil on canvas, 96.5 cm x 91.5 cm
Private collection
©1946 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing Co. Indianapolis, IN
All rights reserved www.curtispublishing.com
63
Figure 7
The Homecoming
Cover for The Saturday Evening Post (May 26, 1945)
Oil on canvas, 71 cm x 56 cm
Collection of Edith K. Hibbs
©1945 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing Co. Indianapolis, IN
All rights reserved www.curtispublishing.com
64
DUE TO COPYRIGHT
RESTRICTIONS, THIS IMAGE IS
NOT AVAILABLE WITH THIS
DOCUMENT.
I ENCOURAGE YOU TO
CONSULT THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
FOR SOURCES WHICH INCLUDE
THIS IMAGE.
Figure 8
Eastman Johnson
Old Kentucky Home
1859
Oil on canvas, 115.6 cm x 92 cm
The New York Historical Society
65
Figure 9
Roadblock
Cover for The Saturday Evening Post (July 9, 1949)
Oil on board, 76 cm x 58.5 cm
Collection of Phillip M. Grace
©1949 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing Co. Indianapolis, IN
All rights reserved www.curtispublishing.com
66
Figure 10
The Problem We All Live With
Illustration for Look (January 14, 1964)
Oil on canvas, 91.5 cm x 147.5 cm
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
67
Figure 11
The Problem We All Live With (study)
1963
Archival photograph, original art whereabouts and dimensions unknown
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
68
Figure 12
Ruby Bridges on her first day of school
November 14, 1960
Archival photograph, dimensions unknown
From www.rubybridges.org
69
Figure 13
Southern Justice
Unpublished illustration for Look, 1965
Oil on canvas, 134.5 cm x 106.5 cm
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
70
Figure 14
Southern Justice (study)
Illustration for Look (June 29, 1965)
Oil on board, 38.1 cm x 32.38 cm
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
71
Figure 15
New Kids in the Neighborhood
Illustration for Look (May 16, 1967)
Oil on canvas, 92.71 cm x 146.05 cm
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
72
DUE TO COPYRIGHT
RESTRICTIONS, THIS IMAGE IS
NOT AVAILABLE WITH THIS
DOCUMENT.
I ENCOURAGE YOU TO
CONSULT THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
FOR SOURCES WHICH INCLUDE
THIS IMAGE.
Figure 16
Alvin Smith
Neshoba Specter
1969
Oil on canvas with collage, 152.4 cm x 90.17 cm
Clark Atlanta University Art Galleries
73
DUE TO COPYRIGHT
RESTRICTIONS, THIS IMAGE IS
NOT AVAILABLE WITH THIS
DOCUMENT.
I ENCOURAGE YOU TO
CONSULT THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
FOR SOURCES WHICH INCLUDE
THIS IMAGE.
Figure 17
Robert Indiana
The Confederacy: Mississippi
1965
Silkscreen print, 88.58 cm x 75.88 cm
Morgan Art Foundation Ltd./Artists Rights Society (ARS)
74
DUE TO COPYRIGHT
RESTRICTIONS, THIS IMAGE IS
NOT AVAILABLE WITH THIS
DOCUMENT.
I ENCOURAGE YOU TO
CONSULT THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
FOR SOURCES WHICH INCLUDE
THIS IMAGE.
Figure 18
Jeff Donaldson
Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy
1963
Oil on canvas, 121.9 cm x 121.9 cm
Collection of the artist
75
DUE TO COPYRIGHT
RESTRICTIONS, THIS IMAGE IS
NOT AVAILABLE WITH THIS
DOCUMENT.
I ENCOURAGE YOU TO
CONSULT THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
FOR SOURCES WHICH INCLUDE
THIS IMAGE.
Figure 19
Faith Ringgold
Flag for the Moon: Die Nigger
1969
Oil on canvas, 91.44 cm x 127 cm
Collection of the artist
76
DUE TO COPYRIGHT
RESTRICTIONS, THIS IMAGE IS
NOT AVAILABLE WITH THIS
DOCUMENT.
I ENCOURAGE YOU TO
CONSULT THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
FOR SOURCES WHICH INCLUDE
THIS IMAGE.
Figure 20
David Hammons
Injustice Case
1970
Mixed media body print, 152.4 cm x 102.87 cm
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
77
Figure 21
Norman Rockwell at his easel with Blood Brothers
Circa 1968
Color photograph from The Martin Diamond Archives, as reproduced in Ben Sonder, The
Legacy of Norman Rockwell.
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
78
Figure 22
Freedom of Worship
Illustration for The Saturday Evening Post (February 27, 1943)
Oil on canvas, 117 cm x 90 cm
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
©1943 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing Co. Indianapolis, IN
All rights reserved www.curtispublishing.com
79
Figure 23
Freedom of Worship (study)
1942
Oil on canvas, dimensions unknown
Whereabouts unknown
©1926 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing Co. Indianapolis, IN
All rights reserved www.curtispublishing.com
80
Figure 24
Golden Rule
Cover for The Saturday Evening Post (April 1, 1961)
Oil on canvas, 113.5 cm x 100.5 cm
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
©1961 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing Co. Indianapolis, IN
All rights reserved www.curtispublishing.com
81
Figure 25
United Nations
Unpublished illustration on United Nations, 1953
Pencil and Charcoal on paper, 69 cm x 186.5 cm
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
82
Figure 26
Right to Know
Illustration for Look (August 20, 1968)
Oil on canvas, 73.5 cm x 137 cm
Collection of Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc.
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
83
Figure 27
Peace Corps (Peace Corps—JFK’s Bold Legacy)
Illustration for Look (June 14, 1966)
Oil on canvas, 115.5 cm x 92.5 cm
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
84
Figure 28
How Goes the War on Poverty
Illustration for Look (July 27, 1965)
Oil on unknown support, measurements unknown
Private collection
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
85
Figure 29
Apollo and Beyond
Illustration for Look (15 July 1969)
Oil on canvas, 72.5 cm x 167.5 cm
Collection of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
86
Figure 30
Blood Brothers
Circa 1965-1968
Oil on canvas, measurements unknown
Missing from the Collection of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
87
Figure 31
Blood Brothers (study)
Circa 1965-1968
Oil on board, 51 cm x 25.5 cm
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
88
Figure 32
Blood Brothers (study)
Circa 1965-1968
Oil on board, 54.5 cm x 26.6 cm
Stockbridge, MA, The Norman Rockwell Museum
Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing, Niles, IL.
89
Bibliography
Books
Claridge, Laura. Norman Rockwell. New York, NY: Random House, 2001.
Cowles, Gardner. Mike Looks Back: The Memoirs of Gardner Cowles, Founder of Look
Magazine. New York, NY: Gardner Cowles, 1985.
Ermoyan, Arpi. Famous American Illustrators. New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications,
1997.
Finch, Christopher. Norman Rockwell’s America. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1975.
Grossman, Mark. The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Civil Rights Movement. Santa Barbara,
CA: ABC-CLIO, 1993.
Guptill, Arthur L. Norman Rockwell, Illustrator. New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications,
1946.
Halpern, Richard. Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 2006.
Huie, William Bradford. Three Lives for Mississippi. With an introduction by Martin Luther
King, Jr. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 2000.
Marker, Sherry. Norman Rockwell. North Dighton, MA: JG Press and World Publications
Group, 2004.
Marling, Karal Ann. Norman Rockwell. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1997.
-----. Norman Rockwell, 1894-1978: America’s Most Beloved Painter. Cologne: Taschen, 2005.
Moffatt, Laurie Norton. Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, 2 vols. Stockbridge, MA:
The Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge and the University Press of New
England, 1986.
Moline, Mary, ed. Norman Rockwell Encyclopedia: A Chronological Catalog of the Artist’s
Work, 1910-1978. Indianapolis, IN: Curtis Publishing, 1979.
Montgomery, Elizabeth Miles. Norman Rockwell. New York, NY: Gallery Books, 1989.
Murray, Stuart and James McCabe, eds. Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms: Images that
Inspire a Nation. Stockbridge, MA: Berkshire House, 1993.
Patton, Sharon F. African-American Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
90
Rockwell, Norman, as told to Tom Rockwell. Norman Rockwell: My Adventures as an
Illustrator. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1988.
Rockwell, Margaret T. Norman Rockwell’s Chronicles of America. New York, NY:
MetroBooks, 1996.
Rosen, Dana, ed. Norman Rockwell: The Artist and His Work, The Norman Rockwell Museum at
Stockbridge. New York, NY: Friedman/Fairfax Publishers, 1995.
Sonder, Ben. The Legacy of Norman Rockwell. New York, NY: Todtri Productions Limited,
1997.
Steinbeck, John. Travels with Charley In Search of America. New York, NY: Viking Press,
1962.
Tebbel, John. George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday Evening Post. Garden City, NY:
Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1948.
Walton, Donald. A Rockwell Portrait: An Intimate Biography. Kansas City, KS: Sheed
Andrews and McMeel, Inc., 1978.
Weil, Stephen E. A Cabinet of Curiosities: Inquiries into Museums and Their Prospects.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1995.
Exhibition Catalogues
Buechner, Thomas S. Norman Rockwell: A Sixty Year Retrospective. New York, NY: Harry N.
Abrams, 1972.
Hart-Hennessey, Maureen, and Anne Knutson, eds. Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the
American People. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1999.
Periodicals
Beem, Edgar Allen. “A Rockwell Renaissance?” ARTnews, vol. 98, no. 8 (September 1999):
134-37.
Ceglio, Clarissa. “Complicating Simplicity.” American Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 2 (June 1, 2002):
279-306.
Gallagher, Victoria and Kenneth S. Zagacki. “Visibility and Rhetoric: The Power of Visual
Images in Norman Rockwell’s Depictions of Civil Rights.” Quarterly Journal of
Speech, vol. 91, no. 2 (May, 2005): 175-200.
91
Gans, Herbert J. “Can Rockwell Survive Cultural Elevation?” The Chronicle of Higher
Education (April 21, 2000): section B, 8.
Glaser, Milton. “The Importance of Being Rockwell.” Columbia Journalism Review, vol. 18
(November/December 1979): 40-42.
Hall, Ruby Bridges. “The Education of Ruby Nell.” Guideposts (March 2000): 3-7. Accessed
online via www.rubybridgesfoundation.org/story.htm. Accessed 11 November 2006.
Herbst, Susan. “Illustrator, American Icon, and Public Opinion Theorist: Norman Rockwell in
Democracy.” Political Communication, vol. 21, no. 1 (January-March 2004): 1-25.
“The History of CORE,” from the official website of Congress of Racial Equality:
http://www.core-online.org/History/history.htm. Accessed 24 February 2007.
Hughes, Robert. “The Rembrandt of Punkin Crick.” Time, vol. 112 (November 20, 1978): 110.
“I Like to Please People.” Time, vol. 41 (June 21, 1943): 41-42.
McCluskey, Eileen. “Ruby Bridges Evokes Tears, Smiles as She Tells Her Tale.” Harvard
University Gazette (25 April 2002). Harvard University Gazette Archives:
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.25/profiles.html. Accessed 24 February
2007.
Reeves, Richard. “Norman Rockwell is Exactly Like a Norman Rockwell.” New York Times
Magazine (February 28, 1971): 14-15, 36-37, 39, 42.
Rusbridger, Alan. “Model Citizens.” Guardian (December 1993, weekend): 6-7, 11-12, 14-15.
Stuart, Kenneth. “The Unforgettable Norman Rockwell.” Reader’s Digest, vol. 115 (July 1979):
104-09.
Weintraub, Laural. “Albert A. Smith’s Plantation Melodies: The American South as Musical
Heartland.” International Review of African American Art, vol. 19, no. 1 (2003): 9-17.
Interviews
Rockwell, Norman. “Distinguished Contemporary Norman Rockwell.” Tape recording, January
1972, Sound Perspectives, Inc., New York, NY.
Videos
“Mississippi: Is This America? (1963-1964),” Eyes on the Prize. Boston, MA: Blackside, 1986.
92
Archives
Stephens, Roderick. Cover Letter to Norman Rockwell, July 12, 1943. Stockbridge, MA:
Norman Rockwell Archives at the Norman Rockwell Museum.
-----. Letter to Norman Rockwell, July 12, 1943. Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Archives
at the Norman Rockwell Museum.
-----. Letter to Norman Rockwell, September 1, 1943. Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell
Archives at the Norman Rockwell Museum.
Correspondence
Marling, Karal Ann, personal email to Kirstie Kleopfer, 21 October 2006.
Pero, Linda Szekely, personal email to Kirstie Kleopfer, 9 May 2007.
93