American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell

by Deborah Solomon

  A manila shipping tag is tied to the basket. It’s the kind with a reinforced hole, a bright red ring that echoes the color and shape of Billy’s shushing lips. Although the shipping tag is curled, you can make out part of the address, which is written in black script: “Billy Pay … 39 Edgew … New R.”

  Where is he going? Perhaps he is journeying to the kingdom of heaven, and sneaking along his dog for company. The painting graced the cover of the Post on May 15, 1920, just two days after what would have been Billy’s sixteenth birthday.

  * * *

  When you think back to the early years of The Saturday Evening Post, two figures spring to mind: Rockwell and F. Scott Fitzgerald. In 1920, by which time Rockwell had been at the Post for four years, Fitzgerald, a twenty-three-year-old Princeton graduate, published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, and began contributing short stories to the Post. George Horace Lorimer believed his stories could bring the magazine a new generation of readers, whose spending habits were giving rise to an advertising market whose dollars he also hoped to attract. Fitzgerald’s famous story the “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” ran in the issue of May 1, 1920, and caused an uproar. Parents who read it took offense, while their daughters thrilled to its implicit endorsement of women who wear lipstick and stay out late. The cover, that week, happened to be Rockwell’s Ouija Board, which referred to one of the first crazes of the twenties. In it, a young man and woman face one another over a fashionable Ouija board, resting their hands on that wooden pointer thing (officially, a planchette) that can supposedly summon spirits and answer questions. It is gravitating to the part of the board that conveys an unambiguous, permission-granting, post-war YES.

  Boy with Dog in Picnic Basket ran on the May 15, 1920, cover of The Saturday Evening Post and amounts to a tender elegy for a boy who fell to his death.

  That summer, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were living in a rustic cottage in Westport, Connecticut, newlyweds who claimed to be seeking quietude. One night Rockwell and Irene were at a dinner in New Rochelle when they piled into someone’s car and were driven to a party in Westport where the guests were dressed in pink jackets and riding habits. “I thought it was all very grand,” Rockwell recalled years later, “because I met F. Scott Fitzgerald, the famous writer, and heard him sing a rowdy song.”14

  It was their only encounter. Rockwell remained impervious to Fitzgerald’s allure and perhaps disapproved of the writer’s beyond-your-means hedonism. Rockwell always believed it was dangerous to court unwarranted pleasures. He had to hold himself in readiness for the art of painting, his raison d’être. Besides, he continued to prefer the company of kids. That summer, he was inseparable from Eddie Carson, who had been Billy’s best friend and had none of his academic problems. Eddie would be leaving for Harvard in the fall, at the age of sixteen. He posed, that July, for a painting that appeared on the cover of the Christmas issue of American Boy magazine. He is shown delivering a pile of wrapped Christmas presents when his mutt plays a little trick on him, yanking on its leash and entangling the boy’s legs.

  An article in the same issue focused on Eddie’s experiences as a model for Rockwell. Rockwell drove Eddie to the interview in his new car, a black Franklin touring affair. The conversation began playfully enough, but then Rockwell started talking about his models. “Bad as they are, I like ’em,” he said.15 “Billy Payne was the worst of all. Full of mischief every minute. A few months ago he started to play one of his good-natured tricks on another boy. He climbed out of one window at his home and started to climb into another. He fell three stories. When they picked him up, they found his skull was fractured.” The original newspaper story had reported that Billy was playing a trick on a girl, not a boy, but Rockwell stuck with the boy version in his future accounts.

  The conversation shifted to other subjects and Rockwell made it sound as if his days in the studio passed in nonstop merriment. The banter between him and Eddie was brotherly and relentless. The reporter asked if Eddie has any bad habits. “He has just one that I know of,” Rockwell replied in a deadpan. “When he goes camping, he shoots mud turtles.”

  When the interview ended, Rockwell and Eddie headed off together, and the reporter was struck by their closeness. As he noted: “They were clambering into the car like two kids—talking, laughing, taking a swat at each other as the occasion offered.” It was, in its way, an astonishing scene. Rockwell seemed more like a camp counselor than a famous artist.

  In the next few years, he continued to be known as the Boy Illustrator. When The Boston Globe interviewed him, in 1923, the headline proclaimed DRAWS BOYS AND NOT GIRLS.16 The article reported: “His favorite subject is boys, good, wholesome boys not of the Smart Alec type.” The integrity of the boys was never in question. But his own character was not nearly so straightforward.

  EIGHT

  MISS AMERICA

  (1922 TO 1923)

  There are very few photographs in which Rockwell and his wife Irene appear together. The most legible was taken in April 1920, by a society photographer at the first-ever Artists’ Ball in New Rochelle. Rockwell, who loved costume parties, is togged out for the occasion as a Spanish matador. He smiles wanly from beneath a goofy hat with pom-poms dangling from the brim.1 Irene stands beside him, a large-boned brunette with a huge, lipsticky smile. She is dressed in a festive if generic costume that does not make it clear who she is supposed to be.

  Rockwell was not eager to fill in the outlines. What we know of Irene comes mostly from his autobiography, where, fairly or not, she is characterized or rather caricatured as a conventional woman who liked to lunch at the Bonnie Briar Country Club. He drove her there even on Sundays, then turned around and went back to his studio. Items in the society column of newspapers attest to Irene’s love of bridge parties. At various times she was a member of the all-women’s Monday Afternoon Bridge Club, the Thursday Afternoon Bridge Club and the Friday Afternoon Bridge Club. Every so often, she entertained “the girls” at her home. She and Rockwell were then living in a two-family, redbrick house at 218 Centre Avenue, not far from the train station.2

  Rockwell dressed up as a Spanish matador for a costume party in April 1920, with his wife, Irene. (Photograph by Paul Thompson)

  Irene seldom posed for Rockwell, but she did make a memorable appearance on the cover of the January 29, 1921 issue of The Literary Digest. It shows a dark-haired woman looking in on her young son and daughter, who are asleep in the same bed. Irene modeled for the mom—a peculiar role for a woman who never bore children. Portrayed in profile, she leans over the daughter’s side of the bed, gently pulling up the edge of the quilt. The boy, slumbering on the far side of the bed, near a window, lies outside the cone of the woman’s gaze. The girl is bathed in adoration, but who will save the boy?

  * * *

  After the death of Billy Payne, Rockwell continued painting scenes of boys and their loyal mutts, and he continued to form friendships with his young models. Initially, nothing seemed to change. His new favorite boy model was Franklin Lischke, a “narrow-shouldered, stringy” boy of twelve and a neighbor of his in New Rochelle. Early in 1921, Rockwell moved his studio into a barn directly behind the Lischke house, at 40 Prospect Street. He rented the second floor from the boy’s father, George Lischke, an accountant whose family was part of New Rochelle’s large German-American contingent. As was his habit, Rockwell renovated his new studio, installing heat, electricity, and a large picture window that faced north and provided the light most artists favor, a light that is even, is not too bright, and casts the least number of shadows.

  Irene Rockwell seldom modeled for Rockwell and made one of her few appearances on the cover of a 1921 issue of The Literary Digest.

  Every morning, before the local businessmen were astir, Rockwell left home and walked the four blocks to his studio, “rushing up Centre Avenue as though it were about noon and he had already wasted the whole morning,” as a reporter noted.3 By now he was a local legend. Schoolboys and their parents recognized him
. “Every dog in New Rochelle knew him,” remarked Clyde Forsythe, with only partial exaggeration.

  After he had modeled for a few Rockwell paintings, Franklin Lischke was promoted to the position of “studio boy” and paid the princely sum of five dollars a week. He came by every day after school to help out. One of his responsibilities was answering the phone (telephone number 375) and shielding Rockwell from unwanted callers, who included, much to the boy’s amusement, important editors in Philadelphia and New York. When an editor called to inquire into a painting that was due or slightly overdue, Franklin was instructed to say that Rockwell was out. To his relief, Franklin was not charged with cleaning the studio. Rockwell preferred cleaning it himself. He swept the floor several times a day and washed his brushes in an oversized sink with turpentine and Ivory soap. He swore by Ivory soap. “I’m very tidy,” he once said. “I like picking things up off the floor. It’s a rest from working. You get to do something else.”4

  The main part of Franklin’s job was locating props. You never knew what crazy object Rockwell might need for a painting. It might be a Victorian couch or a rolltop desk that had to be carried up the creaky flight of stairs to his studio. It might be a cello or a rag doll, and not just any cello or doll, but the right one, the one that looked like it belonged to someone instead of looking like it had been purchased at a store and unpacked from a box three seconds earlier. It was what Rockwell had learned at school: to work from life, to seek “authenticity” above all else.

  Once, Rockwell sent Franklin to the store to buy some fresh trout for a painting of a fisherman. Franklin obliged, but instead of thanking him, Rockwell, who had a sensitive nose, complained that the fish was smelling up the studio. He asked Franklin to take the fish home and bring it back the next day. “Put these in your mother’s refrigerator,” he said. Franklin once again complied, only to hear his mother shriek when she opened the fridge that night.

  When Rockwell finally finished the painting, he instructed Franklin to bury the fish. “I did,” he later recalled, “but I did not dig deep enough.”5

  Sometimes Rockwell’s model was a mutt. When he sketched a picture of a dog, he used a real dog as a model. It would have been easier to draw dogs from memory, but Rockwell chose not to work that way. He liked having objects in front of him, stuff to look at; he liked observing the world’s rich physical evidence. Dogs could be made to hold a pose, or at least hold still, if plied with the right reward. Rockwell kept a sack of bones in the studio, although old dogs, he quickly learned, could not be so easily bribed. They’d snatch a bone and retreat under the sink, snarling when he came near.

  Few of the readers of the Post could have realized how much effort and labor went into a Rockwell cover. Every cover was its own production, with all the theatrical activity that implies. He conceived his own stories, scouted out models, and tracked down props. He wanted his models to be dressed a specific way and he had a substantial costume collection that he stored in his studio.

  If he could not buy the right props or costumes, he rented them. He and Franklin would sometimes drive into New York City, to a shop called Charles Chrisdie & Company, which was located behind the old Metropolitan Opera House. Rockwell was amused by the couple who ran the shop. In a matter of seconds, they could locate the perfect pirate’s cape or pilgrim’s knickerbockers in a room crammed with thousands of costumes hanging from racks in no discernible order.

  One of Rockwell’s most famous paintings has less to do with putting on a costume than taking it off. Franklin Lischke became a symbol of American boyhood when he modeled for No Swimming, which ran on the cover of the Post on June 4, 1921. Set on a warm afternoon, it shows three boys who are perhaps twelve or thirteen on the run, fleeing an unseen pursuer. A hand-painted sign in the background clues you in on their infraction. Franklin is the central figure in the painting, the long-limbed boy who appears to be naked and is clutching his bundled-up clothes as he runs. He frantically turns his head and looks over his left shoulder to see if anyone is following them. His eyebrows are raised all the way up, and his lips are pursed in an O shape, as if he is thinking, “Oh no.”

  What did the boys do wrong? You assume they’re trying to dodge an authority—a policeman, perhaps, and certainly an adult—who spotted them skinny-dipping in a private lake. Various scenarios are imaginable. Perhaps the boys are playing hooky from school. Or perhaps they violated Prohibition and bought a bottle of something alcoholic.

  No Swimming, 1921: One of Rockwell’s most famous paintings has less to do with putting on a costume than taking it off.

  Technically speaking, No Swimming has its bumps. The critic Charles Rosen notes disapprovingly that the anatomy of the three male figures defies logic. Look at the left leg of the central figure: It extends behind the boy and stretches on for so long that if he brought it forward it would be twice as tall as his right leg.6 Moreover, the thigh of the chubby boy looks swollen and undefined, as if he had contracted elephantiasis. Nonetheless, there’s so much going on in the boys’ faces—they’re alert with fear and vulnerability—that their expressions alone carry the piece and give it its striking immediacy. It’s a painting that wins you over by capturing the thrill of getting away with it.

  * * *

  As his fame at the Post increased, Rockwell received a steady influx of requests from advertising executives eager to commission him to help sell products. The work paid well and money struck him as a good enough reason to do something. With only minimal guilt, he undertook paintings to promote Orange Crush soda and Fisk tires and Interwoven socks. At this point he was getting three hundred dollars for a Post cover—an advertisement, by comparison, paid more, as much as one thousand dollars, and required less time. Many of the ads appeared first in the Post, where Rockwell was himself a trusted brand name, the illustrator who did boys. He could reassure consumers that Jell-O (“It’s So Simple” the type boasted) or Carnation milk or Grape-Nuts cereal would not lead to bodily or moral dissolution.

  Unlike J. C. Leyendecker, who was happy to be known nationally as the Arrow Collar Man, Rockwell didn’t want to be associated with a particular consumer good. In 1923 the writer Malcolm Cowley published a witty collage, “Portrait of Leyendecker,” which consisted entirely of cut-up advertisements from a single thick issue of The Saturday Evening Post.7 A portrait of Rockwell, by contrast, even a humorous one, could not reasonably consist of a medley of ads. Magazine covers were his priority and his great love. Ads and calendars would always be the part of his career that he liked least.

  Unlike his magazine covers, for which he usually generated his own story ideas and presided over their progress from roughs to charcoal layouts to framed paintings, ad agencies furnished him with ready-made ideas and expected him to illustrate them to specification. For this reason, he believed his Post covers had creative integrity and the potential for some kind of greatness, while dismissing his ads as hackwork undertaken strictly for the money.

  This is an important distinction, because the phrase “commercial art” can refer to an undifferentiated mass of magazine illustrations, brochures, greeting cards, advertisements—stuff printed on paper. But Rockwell put magazine covers on a higher creative plane and staked his career on them. The irony is that his Saturday Evening Post covers, which earned him his fame as an illustrator, are not in the technical sense illustrations: they do not illustrate a writer’s story. He had learned at art school that images were always subordinate to an author’s text, but when he did a Post cover, there was no text. Rather there was a stand-alone image of which he was the sole author, although at times he did take suggestions for story ideas from editors.

  In the fall of 1921 Rockwell made his first trip to a foreign country at the invitation of an advertising client, Edison Mazda Lamp Works, which was part of General Electric. He had recently done some work for their advertising campaign—paintings whose subjects were generously lit by electric bulbs. Typical, perhaps, was And Every Lad May Be Aladdin, which shows a b
oy reading in bed at night beneath his patchwork quilt, his dog curled at his feet, light pouring out from beneath the crooked shade of his lamp, a twentieth-century magic lantern that makes every boy as lucky as Aladdin.

  Tom McManis, the art director at Edison Mazda, invited Rockwell to accompany him on an extended expense-paid jaunt to South America, ostensibly to inspect Edison Mazda plants.8 “Mac” as he was nicknamed, was the type of man Rockwell admired: a toughie like his brother, Jarvis, “a brawny, barrel-chested fellow with a face like an old-line Irish police sergeant,” as he later wrote.

  Rockwell and Mac sailed south on November 5 on the USS Philadelphia, changing boats at Curaçao, in the Dutch West Indies.9 Their destination was Venezuela, where most of their time would be spent up in the jagged mountains around Caracas. There, they attended a bullfight, peered across barricades at revolutionaries, and were trailed by secret-police men. Rockwell claimed in his autobiography that he had enough after nine days. “I’m going home” he told Mac, leaving his friend behind. But immigration records indicate that the two men sailed back together, from San Juan in Puerto Rico, on November 23, two and a half weeks after they left home.10 A small lie. Perhaps he was embarrassed by the amount of time he spent away from Irene. Or perhaps with that first trip out of the country he realized he wanted to travel much more.

  * * *

  His growing renown as an illustrator also brought invitations to speak to groups and judge contests. On September 6, 1922, he headed to Atlantic City for the three-day Miss America beauty contest, which had been founded only a year earlier by a group of businessman hoping to extend the summer-tourism season into September. The board of judges was comprised of eight purported experts on female beauty, all of them male, including the illustrators C. Coles Phillips and Howard Chandler Christy and the theater producer Lee Shubert. That Rockwell should be tapped as a connoisseur of the female form might seem unlikely, and he did not give any interviews that weekend, gladly deferring to Phillips, his much-older friend and neighbor in New Rochelle. Phillips, the creator of the Fade-Away Girl, held forth in Atlantic City about female beauty and the search for a new, post–World War I ideal.