Norman Rockwell, 1894-1978: America's Most Beloved Painter (Basic Art) Review

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A first class biography of Rockwell by social historian Marling in the handy Taschen art series and certainly value for money. It covers Rockwell's career in enough detail to keep you interested and I liked the way his significant paintings get detailed explanations in the text, not only technique but how they related to the times.
Naturally, Rockwell's Post covers provide the largest number of images but there are some adverts and work for Look magazine after he left the Post. His increasing frustration with the narrow remit the Post allowed him regarding their covers is revealed and as he grew old Rockwell wanted to expand his subject matter and attempt paintings that had a social significance. Marling covers these themes which makes the book much more interesting than just a visual survey of his work.
All the art is in color with some well researched black and whites of the artist, nicely designed and printed on reasonable paper. The back of the book has a bibliography though, strangely, no index. If you are new to Norman Rockwell I can recommend Thomas Buechner's magnificent Norman Rockwell published in 1970 and reprinted over the years but the first edition has tipped in plates and large fold-outs of paintings. Later editions don't have these features. I also enjoyed Advertising World Of Norman Rockwell (Italian Edition) by Donald and Marshall Stoltz, published in 1987. The only book to cover his ad art.
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Since his work is categorized as illustration and was most famously featured on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, fine art critics were slow to acknowledge the importance of Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) as true artist, though his work was enormously popular during his lifetime and has endured as a crucial element in America's perception of itself in the 20th century. Through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, the 1950s and 60s, Rockwell illustrations were a part of daily life, showing, as he once said, "the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed."