Norman Rockwell

332 Magazine Covers

By: Christopher Finch

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eBook | 3 September 2013 | Edition Number 1

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400 Pages

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Now available for the first time as an e-book, Norman Rockwell 332 Magazine Covers features Rockwell's unique vision of America. All of his his justly famous cover illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post, painted between 1916 and 1963, are reproduced in splendid full color in a digital format, with commentaries by Christopher Finch, the noted writer on art and popular culture.

There are few more satisfying sights on a city street than a well-stocked newsstand, hung with a hundred or more magazines and periodicals, each competing for the attention of the potential customer. The American magazine cover enjoyed a Golden Age during the period that opened with the high-speed color press, and ended when subscription sales grew to paramount importance. Dozens of gifted artists made their reputations in this field. None of them, however, achieved the immense and sustained popular success enjoyed by Norman Rockwell.

Although technically he was an academic painter, he had the eye of a photographer and, as he became a mature artist, he used this eye to give us a picture of America that was familiar—astonishingly so—and at the same time unique. The picture seemed familiar because it was everyone’s dream of America; it was unique because only Rockwell managed to bring it to life with such authority. Rockwell held up a friendly mirror to the society he lived in, and Americans have looked into this glass and seen themselves as warm, decent, hard-working citizens of a country bountiful enough to accommodate their boundless optimism.