theartsdesk in Fort Lauderdale: Norman Rockwell, the American Friend

theartsdesk in Fort Lauderdale: Norman Rockwell, the American Friend | reviews, news & interviews

theartsdesk in Fort Lauderdale: Norman Rockwell, the American Friend

An exhibition reveals there's much more to Rockwell's art than comforting nostalgia

by Graham FullerSunday, 24 January 2010

Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) may be the great idealiser of American smalltown life, but many of his paintings took their cues from Dickens, and they thus have an English tang. None more so than Merrie Christmas (pictured below), which Rockwell painted for the cover of 7 December 1929 edition of the Saturday Evening Post: Tony Weller, the philosophising coachman father of Mr Pickwick’s manservant Sam, is shown cracking his whip with one hand and doffing his holly-spiked hat with the other.

Stirred by the Civil Rights movement and aware his work was overtly WASPish, Rockwell sought to redress the balance

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