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Notes
Introduction and Acknowledgments
with art critics scrambling In the past two years, articles reflecting the current range of opinion about Rockwell’s artistic worth include Edgar Allen Beem, “A Rockwell Renaissance?,” ARTnews 98, New York, Sept. 1999, 134–37; Michael Kimmelman, “Renaissance for a ‘Lightweight,’ ” New York Times, Nov. 7, 1999, 1; David Maraniss, “American Beauty,” Washington Post Magazine, May 21, 2000, 6; Peter Schjeldahl, “Fanfares for the Common Man,” New Yorker, Nov. 22, 1999, 190–94; and Charles Rosen and Henri Zerner, “Scenes from the American Dream,” New York Review of Books, Aug. 10, 2000, 16–20.
The middle ground Deborah Solomon, “In Praise of Bad Art,” New York Times, Jan. 22, 1999, 34.
money, they scoffed Norman Rockwell (hereafter NR), as told to Tom Rockwell (hereafter TR), Norman Rockwell, My Adventures as an Illustrator (hereafter MAI), 59.
PART I: NEW YORK
1: Narrative Connections, the Heart of an Illustrator
“living out the cover” Jarvis Rockwell (hereafter JR) interview, Aug. 19, 1999.
“I never caught on” Ibid.
“Finally, my father changed” Ibid.
“It was very unpleasant” Ibid.
That crucial next stage This following description on developing a narrative line is based on Rockwell on Rockwell, 28–29.
“I think the painting” Peter Rockwell (hereafter PR) interview, June 20, 2000.
2: Family Ties That Bind
Given the option The following account of Norman Rockwell’s genealogy is based on personal family archives, professional genealogists’ research, church records, city directories, and old letters from family members.
But what Rockwell MAI, 20.
Howard’s periodic tirades Ibid.
In between his forays The Alexander Smith carpet works was probably the largest carpet industry in the world, at least until the 1950s, when the plant moved from Yonkers to Mississippi. Providing carpets and rugs to wealthy collectors around the world—perhaps most famously, for the czars—as well as covering the floors of middle-class Americans, the industry experimented in the mid-twentieth century with hiring prominent artists such as Chagall and Matisse to create special designs for them.
“He was genial” “Necrology,” “Opera Glass,” Westchester County Fair, Aug. 17, 1886.
“Mr. Hill had resided” Yonkers Statesman, Aug. 17, 1886.
“enough people”: Mary Amy Orpen (hereafter MAO) interview, Sept. 27, 2000.
“potboilers” TR interview, Sept. 15, 1999.
“an artistic painter” Yonkers Statesman, Mar. 7, 1888.
“Yes, she acted” MAO interview, Sept. 27, 2000.
“It’s almost as if” Dale Heister letter to TR, July 1986.
“A people of” and “exceptionally literate” David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, 87.
“whose Christian fidelity” J. Thomas Scharf, History of Westchester County, 113.
“fine country seat” and “to be considered” Rev. Charles Elmer Allison, The History of Yonkers (Harrison, N.Y., 1896, 1984), 383.
“Apparently she was considered” MAO interview, Sept. 27, 2000.
“She spoke” and “I didn’t” Ibid.
The beauty of the ceremony Gleaner, July 22, 1891.
“agreeable fascination” and “the bride” Ibid.
3: City Boy, Born and Bred
“My mother” MAI, 21.
“darn near died” and “Mercy Percy” Ibid., 22.
“I had” and “in terror,” Ibid., 23.
The crusty See, for instance, Eric Segal, “Norman Rockwell and the Fashioning of American Masculinity,” 637–38.
“Norman and I” This account was repeated to me by several people who knew Nancy Hill or NR.
“I know” and “she saw” MAO interview, Sept. 27, 2000.
“lower middle-class” and “the tough slum” MAI, 22.
“Little Norman” Letter from Nancy to Jerry Rockwell, quoted from memory by Dick Rockwell (hereafter DR) to author, interview, July 11, 2000.
“I considered myself” and “I always felt” Jerry Rockwell, unpublished memoir.
“My father” DR letter to author, July 11, 2000.
“I have” Jerry Rockwell, unpublished memoir.
By the time John Tebbel and Mary Ellen Zuckerman, The Magazine in America: 1741–1990, 75.
Erik Erikson Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society, 314.
“language” Stephan F. Brumberg, Going to America, Going to School, 113.
“They left out” Ibid., 127.
“It was sort of” MAI, 37.
“I do recall” and “The Spanish-American War” Jerry Rockwell, unpublished memoir.
“My ability” MAI, 37.
“Whenever I think” Ibid., 27.
“I was never” Ibid.
dug holes “Norman Rockwell by Norman Rockwell,” Esquire, Jan. 1962, 69.
“There was” MAI, 22.
“I was born” “Norman Rockwell by Norman Rockwell,” Esquire, Jan. 1962, 69.
In the far Upper West Side MAI, 22–23.
“very dictatorial” Ibid., 20.
“I do remember” Jerry Rockwell, unpublished memoir.
“He was intensely loyal” MAI, 27.
private wedding “Love Costs Millions in a Woman’s Case,” New York Times, Nov. 27, 1901.
“The marriage” and “He says” and “If Mr. Palmer” Ibid.
“followed a request” Frank A. Crampton, Deep Enough, n.p.
4: A Dickensian Sensibility
“meaning of life” Benjamin Stolberg, quoted in Jan Cohn, Creating America, 117.
“even, colorless voice” MAI, 28.
“curing” Peter Rockwell first discussed this recollection of his father’s in a talk he gave at the Berkshire County Museum, Nov. 12, 1999.
“art, or at least art that matters” “Comforting, Funny Outlandishness That Sticks to Its Own Logic,” New York Times, Dec. 1, 2000, E33.
“I would . . . draw” and “So that” MAI, 28.
“to his own father” Harold Bloom, Charles Dickens, 6.
“had something aristocratic” and “My father’s life” MAI, 27.
“I’d draw Mr. Micawber’s” Ibid., 9.
Dickens’s An astonishing amount of first-rate scholarship now exists on Charles Dickens, but one of the easiest, most informative places to start is Paul Davis, Charles Dickens: A to Z (New York, 1998).
“I sometimes think” and “Maybe as I grew” MAI, 35. Rockwell repeated this information for decades, with slight variations, whenever he was asked to explain his art.
“mock fireplace” MAI, 22.
“The central hall” Jerry Rockwell, unpublished memoir.
“Aunt Nancy” MAO interview, Sept. 27, 2000.
“I guessed” MAI, 28.
“we didn’t visit” Ibid., 17.
The vivid recollection In the 1980s, the subject of Rockwell’s anecdote would be (mis)identified as Anne Waring Paddock, whose husband, Walter Halse
y Paddock, in fact didn’t die until 1902, basically of old age, and whose son William died at age twenty, hardly a little boy.
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