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Title details for American Mirror by Deborah Solomon - Available

American Mirror

The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell

by Deborah Solomon
Andrea Gallo
Audiobook
3 of 3 copies available
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3 of 3 copies available
Welcome to Rockwell Land," writes Deborah Solomon in the introduction to this spirited and authoritative biography of the painter who provided twentieth-century America with a defining image of itself. As the star illustrator of The Saturday Evening Post for nearly half a century, Norman Rockwell mingled fact and fiction in paintings that reflected the we-the-people, communitarian ideals of American democracy. Freckled Boy Scouts and their mutts, sprightly grandmothers, a young man standing up to speak at a town hall meeting, a little black girl named Ruby Bridges walking into an all-white school— here was an America whose citizens seemed to believe in equality and gladness for all. Who was this man who served as our unofficial " artist in chief" and bolstered our country' s national identity? Behind the folksy, pipe-smoking facade lay a surprisingly complex figure— a lonely painter who suffered from depression and was consumed by a sense of inadequacy. He wound up in treatment with the celebrated psychoanalyst Erik Erikson. In fact, Rockwell moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts so that he and his wife could be near Austen Riggs, a leading psychiatric hospital. " What' s interesting is how Rockwell' s personal desire for inclusion and normalcy spoke to the national desire for inclusion and normalcy," writes Solomon. " His work mirrors his own temperament— his sense of humor, his fear of depths— and struck Americans as a truer version of themselves than the sallow, solemn, hard-bitten Puritans they knew from eighteenth-century portraits." Deborah Solomon, a biographer and art critic, draws on a wealth of unpublished letters and documents to explore the relationship between Rockwell' s despairing personality and his genius for reflecting America' s brightest hopes. " The thrill of his work," she writes, " is that he was able to use a commercial form [that of magazine illustration] to thrash out his private obsessions." In American Mirror, Solomon trains her perceptive eye not only on Rockwell and his art but on the development of visual journalism as it evolved from illustration in the 1920s to photography in the 1930s to television in the 1950s. She offers vivid cameos of the many famous Americans whom Rockwell counted as friends, including President Dwight Eisenhower, the folk artist Grandma Moses, the rock musician Al Kooper, and the generation of now-forgotten painters who ushered in the Golden Age of illustration, especially J. C. Leyendecker, the reclusive legend who created the Arrow Collar Man. Although derided by critics in his lifetime as a mere illustrator whose work could not compete with that of the Abstract Expressionists and other modern art movements, Rockwell has since attracted a passionate following in the art world. His faith in the power of storytelling puts his work in sync with the current art scene. American Mirror brilliantly explains why he deserves to be remembered as an American master of the first rank.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 5, 2013

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781470388805
      • File size: 573491 KB
      • Duration: 19:54:46

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Art critic Deborah Solomon provides an insightful examination of Norman Rockwell's place in American art and culture. Andrea Gallo narrates with wry humor and gives Rockwell's own anecdotes especially skillful renditions. Reflecting Solomon's anecdotal style, she illuminates the humor of the self-deprecating artist. In clear, breezy voice, Gallo presents discussions of Rockwell's SATURDAY EVENING POST classic images, including FOUR FREEDOMS, SAYING GRACE, and GIRL IN MIRROR. The author's admiration for the artist comes through to listeners. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      June 15, 2014

      Solomon (Utopia Parkway) meticulously researches beloved American artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell's life. She draws on letters, journals, newspaper clippings, Rockwell's autobiography, and other authoritative resources to deliver a detailed description of all aspects of his life, including his depression, artistic insecurity, and struggle to become a true artist. Andrea Gallo narrates with perfect intonation and accents, but she cannot hide Solomon's seeming contempt of Rockwell. The author uses every opportunity to pin the artist as a closeted gay, stretching at times to ridiculous proportions. In trying to interpret Rockwell's camping-journal statement that he "stripped and frolicked" near a waterfall as a sure sign of his hidden homosexuality, Solomon points out that he wrote the word frolicked, which includes the word licked. VERDICT Gallo's pleasurable tone keeps the well-paced story clipping along, and despite Solomon's obvious bias against Rockwell, the details are colorful and descriptive, bringing to life Rockwell, his family, friends, and the times in which they lived. ["An excellent overview of the period, with a touching portrayal of the man behind the images that cheered a nation," read the review of the Farrar hc, LJ 10/1/13.]--Susan Herr, Bulverde/Spring Branch Lib., TX

      Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 12, 2013
      In this well-paced, insightful biography of the iconic illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post, art critic Solomon (Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell) reveals an enormously complicated man whose wholesome vision of America was not merely commercial kitsch, but art that sprung from an emotional life fraught with anxiety, depression, and self-doubt. This sympathetic portrait depicts a repressed and humble Rockwell—a fastidious realist whose style and obsessions clashed with the values of modernism. Thrice married and an apathetic husband, he clearly preferred the companionship of male friends and was likely a closeted homosexual. Rockwell also had an obsessive-compulsive personality and received therapy from the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, who became a crutch as his second wife slipped into manic alcoholism. Solomon effectively refutes common misperceptions of his work, showing that Rockwell did not promote stereotypes, suburban conformity, or cater his work to the Post’s demands. In addition, the author perceptively highlights the paintings’ narrative intelligence, comedy, and technical skill. Though Solomon opts to simplify and quickly dismiss criticism of Rockwell (such as Dwight Macdonald’s), her substantive narrative captures the abundant complexities of this unusual artist, and reclaims him as a master storyteller. 8 pages of color illus. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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