Wisconsin State Journal from Madison, Wisconsin • 89

NEW YORK: Exhibit takes a long look at hair4H Top 10 Commentary 2H 2H mmai makm mt, timing m-n-m mm Wisconsin State Journal Sunday, February 20, 2000 Travel Editor: Christina Cieslewicz, (608) 252-6191 Rockwell exhibit stirs memorie m-wammm -js mail niwcap By Dave Ferman Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram fj i 1 --Jf f' 'jZZM 1 0 rl--- Photos courtesy of The Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge "Art Critic" is one of the more than 70 oil paintings featured In the exhibit "Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People." The show also includes all 322 covers for The Saturday Evening Post. idea, he once said, was to chronicle American life "as I would like it to be." That meant a pubescent girl looking in the mirror and comparing herself to a movie star in a magazine, gossip spreading from one person to another, a family walking to church on Sunday morning, a tot discovering his father's Santa Claus costume, an older woman and a boy praying in a crowded downtown restaurant, and hundreds more. A sizable number of his works "Girl at Mirror," "Going and Coming" and certainly "The Four Freedoms" series became the shared visual shorthand of events great and small to several generations of Americans. Rockwell had come along at just the right time to do this, and he had just the right background and influences. For most of his time on the "Post" the magazine was one of the two most popular in America.

Along with circuses, baseball games and the radio, the "Post" was family entertainment for thousands of homes. Also, Rockwell never thought art and commerce were strange (or inappropriate) bedfellows. He was a commercial advertising artist both before and during his "Post" career, doing ads for Jell-O, Sun-Maid Raisins, Ford automobiles, and many more. The images that often sell products the best are those of home and family, generations interacting, and a sense of safety and community Rockwell believed in all this, but he also knew how effective those images were. 7" He had come to the table, too, with a fondness for American and English literature from the 1800s, material familiar to much of his audience.

He would do paintings and illustrations based on stories, books and scenes from Mark Twain, Washington Irving and Charles Dickens. All of this was informed by his love of the classics, including Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and the Dutch masters Vermeer and Rembrandt. One of his most famous paintings, 1943's "Rosie the Riveter," shows a young redheaded woman in front of an American flag. She is looking to her right; in her left hand is a sandwich. Her left arm rests on her right hand, which is on her rivet gun.

The painting is a direct quote from Michelangelo's depiction of the prophet Isaiah on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. But perhaps his biggest classic influence was Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). Vermeer's placement of characters in a scene and the simple grace with which he portrayed people doing common tasks and having common conversations is all over Rockwell's work, as is his use of light Like Vermeer, Rockwell's paintings were often suffused with a soft, golden light, almost a benign presence. This is certainly true of "Want," as well as "Shuffleton's Barbershop" (1950), "Charwomen in Theater" (1946) and 1955's gorgeous "The Marriage License." The last is one of Rockwell's great quiet triumphs: An everyday scene a young couple signing a marriage license at city hall is given a serene and almost religious significance by the light streaming in the window and onto the woman's face. Vermeer's light Smalltown life.

Old folks and little boys. A kid in his only suit leaving the farm for college and a working-class man speaking up at a town hall meeting. This was Rockwell's sensibility, and the reason so many people loved him: We saw ourselves in his work, saw our lives and foibles, with reference points to the past all along the way. Granpa's room was a magical place he had a collection of pipes from all over the world, an ashtray that looked like a rattlesnake, a skull, a German rifle and bayonet a sword from the War of 1812, Confederate money, weathered paperbacks by Damon Runyon and Ring Lardner. I read those books and dreamed of writing my own more likely than being a painter, as I could barely draw a stick Please see ROCKWELL, Page 3H Norman Rockwell was my granpa's hero and so he was mine.

Back then, when I was 7 or 8 or 9, 1 knew that Mr. Rockwell, Granpa Harry and I were connected in some way. Granpa drew cartoons for the newspaper, and painted and wrote poetry, and I was sure Granpa talked to Mr. Rockwell all the time in secret, and that some day Mr. Rockwell would come to Wichita, Kansas, and the big house on Poplar Street They'd show me how to paint, and we'd all smoke our pipes (both of them smoked pipes, so I was sure all artists smoked pipes), and tell stories, and Grandma would make dinner, and we'd all sit around, three pals.

Then it happened. I was probably 9 and our family drove in from Michigan for Thanksgiving. We all sat around the table while Grandma brought out the turkey; she sat it down on the table, we all ooohed and aaahed and Granpa cut it, and I watched the first piece make its way down to me. There were mashed potatoes and gravy and pie, and I sat right next to Granpa and he smiled at me. Everything was perfect After dinner I began going through a book of Rockwell's paintings and Post covers and stopped, dumbfounded and delighted.

There, on the page, was the Thanksgiving I had just had Grandma and the turkey, Granpa behind her, all of us watching the big bird's final descent everyone smiling, the whole thing. I had just been IN one of Mr. Rockwell's paintings. "Granpa, look, it's our Thanksgiving! Look! That lady looks just like Grandma! That's the turkey! How did Mr. Rockwell know?" "Mr.

Rockwell knows everyone, Davy." Recently, in Atlanta, I stood, and I waited, and finally the old couple to my left walked into the next room, and for a moment I was alone with Rockwell's "Freedom From Want" I had hoped to see "Want" and all of Rockwell's paintings for 30 years, ever since I had sat next to my grandfather and we looked at those covers of The Saturday Evening Post that he had saved, covers that established Rockwell as the most famous chronicler of America through the first half of the century. Viewing the more than 70 oil paintings and all 322 Post covers that make up the bulk of "Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People," I can't help but think back to that remark he made after that Thanksgiving dinner. The exhibit is the largest collection of Rockwell's work that has ever gone on tour. After its run at Atlanta's High Museum of Art, it will go to six other museums through February 2002: Chicago Historical Society in Chicago; The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the San Diego Museum of Art in San Diego; the Phoenix Art Museum in Phoenix, The Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

To view "Pictures" is to understand the depth of Rockwell's love of America, just what a masterful artist and storyteller he was, and how much hope he had for the country coming through all the changes and challenges he saw during his lifetime. Norman Rockwell was a believer. He believed America was the greatest place on Earth, he believed in different generations being comfortable with each other. He thought America was changing for the better, that children were inherently wonderful, that couples should grow old together. He maintained that racists were idiots, that men should fight for their country but would come home safe and sound and loved.

He believed in Thanksgiving and Christmas. He believed, very strongly, in puppy dogs. Born in New York City, Rockwell had done his first Post cover in 1916; the magazine began regularly featuring him in 1920. His 1 1I f) 5 I I.I 4X "The Runaway," a Saturday Evening Post cover, is in his more familiar sunny style. "Rockwell captured America's imagination by illustrating what we all knew and saw, but which we didn't notice," says Douglas Greenberg, Chicago Historical Society president.

Rockwell pays homage to Dutch painter Vermeer In "The Marriage License." 'The commonplace of America are to me the richest subjects in art," Rockwell once wrote. "Commonplaces never become tiresome. It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative." If you go Amiitage St Chicago j- Zoo Roosevelf Memoral A I Hospital 3 North Ave. -s V5. Beach I -o I ZL North Ave.

04--J I p. i Latin School Chicago of Chicago (Ti Historical i society WM I I 1 fl 'vl 7 Division What "Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People" featuers more than 70 of Rockwell's oil paintings and all 322 of his Saturday Evening Post covers. When: The exhibit opens Saturday at the Chicago Historical Society, Clark Street at North Avenue, and will remain on view until May 21. Hours are 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

daily and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. The museum can be reached at (31 2) 642-4600 or www.chicagohistory.org. Tickets: Tuesday through Sunday, admission is $1 3 for adults, $1 1 for students and seniors, $1 for children 6 to 12, and free for children younger than 6. On Mondays, tickets are $8 for adults, seniors and students and $1 for children 6 to 12.

Tickets to the exhibit include admission to the museum. Same-day tickets can be purchased at the museum. Advance tickets are available through Ticketmaster, (312) 902-1500 or www. ticketmaster. com.

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