Norman Rockwell, one of the most loved illustrator and painter in the history of American art, is renowned for his paintings that resemble snapshots taken from the everyday life of ordinary people. At the peak of his career he was the best cover illustrator in America who found the inspiration for his paintings from the daily life of the society.
The album, ‘Christmas With Norman Rockwell’, is a compilation of about fifty of his best and popular Christmas paintings, chosen from phases of his entire career and reproduced in full color for the enjoyment of art lovers.
Along with the art plates, a comprehensive study of Norman Rockwell as an artist – written by the author of this compilation, John Kirk – is also provided in this volume.
Norman Rockwell
Born in New York City in 1894, he had a keen interest in sketching from a very young age, and he was doing paid illustration assignments for publishers when he was just 17. He became the art editor and art contributor to Boy’s Life – the official magazine of Boy Scouts of America an organization to which he was devoted – when he was nineteen. By that time he was contributing to other publications and from 1916, The Saturday Evening Post, a rapidly emerging mass circulation magazine, was regularly using illustrations done by Rockwell for their magazine cover images. From that point onwards he was contributing to multiple leading publication houses and other establishments with an array of paintings, calendar designs and greeting card illustrations.
One of the most prestigious of his works were a series of paintings named ‘The Four Freedoms’ – depicting Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear -, which were issued as posters by the US Government Printing Office. His artworks have adorned numerous US postal stamps and even on stamps from other countries. In 1994, on the 100th anniversary of Rockwell’s birth, the U.S. Postal Service honored him with a set of four stamps, featuring his ‘The Four Freedoms’ paintings.
Rockwell’s Christmas Illustrations and their popularity
What made Rockwell’s art so reachable for the common people was his successful encapsulation of their hopes and their emotions in the illustrations. Rockwell’s art raised a sense of association for the ordinary people and they embraced his illustrations with great pleasure.
With his first Christmas special cover illustration drawn for the December 9, 1916, issue of Saturday Evening Post, Rockwell became a legend and his holiday special cover illustrations – which he continued for 3 decades – were awaited with much eager by the whole nation. He captured the essence of joy, humor, kindness, togetherness of families and warmth that Christmas is renowned for in these cover illustrations, which gave these paintings a cult status. He also drew special covers for other holiday occasions like New Year’s Day and Thanksgiving but his Christmas illustrations were simply his best as they were works that came direct from his heart. Some of the most popular Christmas cards from Hallmark in the 1940s and 1950s were also created by Norman Rockwell. He also contributed a lot of illustrations for various magazine ad campaigns from brands like Parker, Coca Cola etc.
His exceptional artistic talent and his sincere love for everything
related to Christmas, made these paintings extremely popular. He himself
once remarked about the popularity of his paintings:
“People somehow get out of your work just about what you put into it, and if you are interested in the characters that you draw, and understand and love them, why, the person who sees your picture is bound to feel the same way.”
And he chose to venture out from the traditional viewpoints associated with Christmas paintings and made his works not tainted with any religious hints. He chose the human angle of the occasion as the central theme in most of these Christmas illustrations and that makes them appealing to almost anyone.
The level of detail that is invested into each of these paintings is quite amazing. You can observe throngs of people with their last minute Christmas shopping; Kids, gifts and Santa Clauses; whole families making merry of the holidays; snowmen; whole vistas of villages and towns basking in the glory of the holidays; visuals that can amuse and connect with the viewer in these paintings.
This volume gives the reader a glimpse at some of the best illustrations from a master painter who painted “ordinary people in everyday situations” with his whole heart. While doing so it also inspects some of the criticisms that Norman Rockwell had to face during the 1970s from “Serious” art critics, who accused his works as not “addressing socially burning causes” and being bourgeois.
