Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera

(George Eastman House, 17 July 2011)

Rockwell painted what the public wanted and what he found pleasing: friends---numerous, in safety, and in comfort. Advertisers and editors paid for the best and rejected the worst. What he thought mattered to him most, he could not paint, and so he has never lost his public.

The intensity of the contact with what matters most may overwhelm the artist unless he operates by swiftly releasing the shutter. The vitality of pictures fades faster than that of words, which evoke ever changing images in the artist's maturing mind. The consolation of Rockwell's art is not that a conflict can be resolved, but that no conflict exists; at most, there is brief misunderstanding.