1. NR quoted in Mildred Wallace, “Norman Rockwell, Travelling Portraitist, Recalls the World Leaders,” The Berkshire Eagle, January 12, 1966, p. 1.
2. George Reedy, Johnson’s press secretary, letter to Richard Wilson of Cowles Publications, June 30, 1964, LBJ Library.
3. Associated Press biographical service, unpublished “biographical sketch,” March 1, 1971; retrieved from the clipping files of The Boston Globe.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. The visit occurred on October 30, 1965, according to Lady Bird Johnson’s diaries.
7. Nan Robertson, “Johnson Dislikes His Likeness,” The New York Times, January 6, 1967, p. 35; see also AP and UPI stories, same date.
8. Lady Bird Johnson, A White House Diary (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970), p. 332.
9. Ibid., 330.
10. Ibid., 331.
11. Lyndon B. Johnson, letter to Robert Kleberg, Jr., April 25, 1966, central files, LBJ Library.
12. Maxine Cheshire, “Very Interesting People,” The Washington Post, January 5, 1967, p. E1.
13. Robertson, “Johnson Dislikes His Likeness.”
14. Ibid.
15. Cheshire, “Very Interesting People.”
16. John G. W. Mahanna, “Artist Norman Rockwell Proves to Press That He Really Is Not Two Other People,” The Berkshire Eagle, July 25, 1967, p. 17.
29. THE VIETNAM WAR (1965 TO 1967)
1. Phil Casey, “Norman Rockwell: More than Half a Century Illustrating the Human Drama,” The Washington Post, November 4, 1970, p. D1.
2. “Mrs. Norman Rockwell,” The Boston Sunday Globe, December 14, 1969, p. 30A.
3. Louie Lamone, interview with Annie Pettegrew, transcript, July 22, 1988.
4. The Berkshire Eagle, January 12, 1976; Scott arrived in town in the fall of 1964.
5. Helen Rice, interview with Stockbridge library, oral history project, November 27, 1979, cassette tape; Stockbridge library archives.
6. “Artist Rockwell Joins Army of ‘Angry’ People,” The Boston Globe, July 2, 1965.
7. NR, interview with John Batty, 1972, cassette tape; courtesy of Thomas Rockwell.
8. Bing Crosby, letter to NR, October 26, 1965, NRM.
9. NR calendar, November 27, 1965, NRM.
10. Gary Giddins, e-mail to the author, November 18, 2012.
11. NR, telegram to Lyndon B. Johnson, January 3, 1966, LBJ Library.
12. NR, telegram to Lyndon B. Johnson, January 23, 1966, LBJ Library.
13. Jinx Falkenburg, “The Postscript, by Jinx,” A.M. Globe, April 21, 1951; retrieved from Globe clipping files.
14. The Saturday Evening Post, letters page, October 22, 1955.
15. Arthur Paul, letter to NR, June 17, 1966, NRM.
16. “NR by NR,” Esquire, January 1962, p. 69.
17. Dugald Stermer, letter to NR, August 8, 1968, NRM.
18. Christopher Wren, interview with the author, August 28, 2010.
19. Ibid.
20. “Lenin Prizes Won by Dr. Niemöller and Rockwell Kent,” The New York Times, May 1, 1967, p. 1.
21. John G. W. Mahanna, “Artist Norman Rockwell Proves to Press That He Really Is Not Two Other People,” The Berkshire Eagle, July 25, 1967, p. 17.
22. The painting appeared as an illustration for Jack Star’s article “A Negro in the Suburbs” in the May 16, 1967, issue of Look.
23. Dr. Robert Coles, interview with the author, May 13, 2010.
24. Dr. Coles, letter to NR, June 22, 1967.
25. Dr. Coles, interview with the author, May 13, 2010.
26. NR, letter to Dr. Coles, September 11, 1967, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wilson Special Collections Library.
27. Dr. Coles, Dead End School, with illustrations by NR (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), p. 13.
28. Dr. Coles, interview with the author, May 13, 2010.
29. Ibid.
30. ALICE’S RESTAURANT (1967)
1. Alice May Brock, My Life as a Restaurant (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1975).
2. Arlo Guthrie, interview with the author, July 15, 2009.
3. Brock, My Life as a Restaurant, p. 79.
4. Brock, e-mail to the author, February 19, 2011.
5. Guthrie, interview with the author, July 15, 2009.
6. “Ten Artists Will Show Local Scenes for Library Week,” The Berkshire Eagle, April 1, 1960, p. 21.
7. Linda Szekely Pero, American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell (Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Museum, 2007), p. 200.
8. Audiovox Service Identification Card, April 27, 1966, NRM.
9. Karal Ann Marling, Norman Rockwell (New York: Harry N. Abrams, in association with the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1997), p. 147.
10. Alice Brock, interview with the author, February 17, 2011.
11. Robert Jay Lifton, Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir (New York: Free Press, 2011), p. 124.
12. “Willie, The Uncommon Thrush,” was published as an eight-page feature in the April 1967 issue of McCall’s. Two years later, it came out as a book, Willie Was Different: The Tale of an Ugly Thrushling (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1969).
13. Willie Was Different, p. 31.
31. ANDY WARHOL & COMPANY (FALL 1968)
1. Grace Glueck, “What Makes Bernie Run?” The New York Times, December 19, 1971, p. D27.
2. Laurence Casper, interview with the author, May 12, 2011; Bernard Danenberg, interview with the author, July 24, 2011.
3. Although the Post paid Rockwell for the painting, in 1957, it declined to publish it, perhaps because of its joking attitude toward the church. It ran in McCall’s in March 1969. It is now owned by Brigham Young University.
4. NR, “Rockwell on Parrish,” art review, The Berkshire Eagle, August 10, 1968.
5. Michael Crawford, e-mail to the author, May 2011.
6. According to Carson Productions, the tape for October 1,1968, does not exist.
7. Al Kooper, Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards: Memoirs of a Rock ’n’ Roll Survivor (New York: Backbeat Books, 2008), p. 140.
8. Kooper, interview with the author, April 10, 2011.
9. Ibid.
10. Danenberg, interview with the author, July 24, 2011.
11. Kooper, interview with the author, April 10, 2011.
12. Grace Glueck, “Art Notes: Don’t Knock Rock,” The New York Times, November 3, 1968, p. D32.
13. Thomas Buechner, “A Matter of Opinion,” The New York Times, October 20, 1968, p. D26.
14. Danenberg, interview with the author, July 24, 2011.
15. Ibid.
16. Portrait of Jackie Kennedy, lot #2835, The Andy Warhol Collection, a six-volume catalog of the Warhol estate sale at Sotheby’s in 1988.
17. Matt Wribican, archivist, Warhol Museum, e-mail to the author, May 31, 2011.
18. Barnett Newman, quoted in Clifford Ross, ed., Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics: An Anthology (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990).
19. Richard Estes, interview with the author, July 12, 2011.
20. Audrey Flack, interview with the author, July 6, 2011.
21. Danenberg gallery sales records; courtesy of Larry Casper.
22. Casper, interview with the author, May 12, 2011.
23. NR, televised interview with David Frost, December 2, 1970, NRM.
24. The session was held in December 1967.
25. Gary Wills, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-made Man (1970; New York: Mariner Books, 2002), p. 12.
26. Casper, interview with the author, May 12, 2011.
27. Kooper, interview with the author, April 10, 2011.
28. “Norman Rockwell Astray,” Newsweek, September 8, 1958, p. 92.
32. THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM (1969 TO 1972)
1. “Historical Home Acquired,” Bennington Banner, June 2, 1967, p. 5.
2. Louie Lamone, interview with Annie Pettegrew, July 22, 1988, transcript, NRM.
3. Bernie
Danenberg, interview with the author, July 24, 2011.
4. Ibid.
5. On January 29, 1969, accession no. 69.8, Brooklyn Museum registrar’s office.
6. Bob Abrams, interview with the author, July 11, 2011.
7. David Dempsey, “Norman Rockwell Illustrator,” The New York Times Book Review, November 1, 1970, p. 283.
8. Christopher Finch, conversation with the author, July 25, 2011.
9. Phil Casey, “Norman Rockwell: More Than Half a Century Illustrating the Human Drama,” The Washington Post, November 4, 1970, p. D1.
10. “Notes and Footnotes,” The Berkshire Eagle, December 9, 1970.
11. Audiotape of The David Frost Show, December 2, 1970, NRM.
12. Casey, “Norman Rockwell.”
13. The New York Times Book Review, list of bestsellers, January 10, 1971.
14. Danenberg, letter to NR, January 28, 1971; courtesy of Larry Casper.
15. Molly Rockwell, letter to Danenberg, January 31, 1971; courtesy of Larry Casper.
16. Danenberg, letter to NR, January 28, 1971; courtesy of Larry Casper.
17. Ibid.
18. Agreement between Harry N. Abrams, Inc., and Norman Rockwell, April 19, 1971; courtesy of Abrams, New York.
19. NR, letter to Danenberg, August 31, 1971, NRM.
20. Sarah Faunce to Tom Buechner, internal memo, April 22, 1971, Brooklyn Museum archives.
21. Duncan Cameron, letter to Danenberg, June 28, 1971, Brooklyn Museum archives.
22. Cameron, letter to Evan Hopkins Turner, July 6, 1971, Brooklyn Museum archives.
23. Evan H. Turner, letter to Cameron, July 13, 1971, Brooklyn Museum archives.
24. Cameron, letter to NR, February 4, 1972, Brooklyn Museum archives.
25. NR, letter to Cameron, February 8, 1972, Brooklyn Museum archives.
26. Tom Buechner, letter to NR, February 22, 1972, Brooklyn Museum archives.
27. NR, letter to Cameron, March 7, 1972, Brooklyn Museum archives.
28. He is listed as the owner of six paintings in the Sixty Year catalog.
29. Jan Henry James, publicist, memo to Cameron, March 23, 1972, Brooklyn Museum archives.
30. Peter Schjeldahl, “Still on the Side of the Boy Scouts—But Why Not?” The New York Times, June 24, 1973, p. 125.
31. Schjeldahl, conversation with the author, February 15, 2012.
33. “BUT I WANT TO GO TO MY STUDIO” (1972 TO 1978)
1. He was first identified publicly as an Alzheimer’s patient in November 1984, in “The Disease of the Century,” Newsweek, December 3, 1984, p. 56.
2. NR, letter to Patty Tang, then secretary at the Danenberg gallery, August 16, 1972; courtesy of Larry Casper.
3. “Celebrity Week,” The Berkshire Eagle, September 18, 1972, p. 18.
4. Donald Walton, A Rockwell Portrait: An Intimate Biography (Kansas City, MO: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1978), p. 271.
5. Jane Fitzpatrick, interview with the author, September 1, 2000.
6. Ibid.
7. Quoted in Cameron Crowe, “Candid Conversation: An Outrageous Conversation with the Actor, Rock Singer and Sexual Switch-Hitter,” Playboy, September 1976, available at www.bowiegoldenyears.com/articles/7609-playboy.html.
8. Virginia Loveless, interview with the author, August 22, 2011.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Molly Rockwell, letter to Kitty More, April 16, 1975, collection of author.
12. John Bryson, “Norman Rockwell, Beloved Painter of Homespun America, Is Going Strong at 82,” People, February 23, 1976, p. 42.
13. Molly Rockwell, letter to Kitty More, March 1, 1976; collection of the author.
14. Louie Lamone, interview with Annie Pettegrew, July 22, 1988, transcript, NRM.
15. Louie Lamone, interview with Annie Pettegrew, November 5, 1987, transcript, NRM.
16. David Wood, interview with Annie Pettegrew, July 6, 1988, transcript, NRM.
17. Saul Pett, “Artist Won People but Not Critics,” Associated Press, December 18, 1977.
18. Lamone, interview with Annie Pettegrew, July 22, 1988.
19. Wood, interview with Annie Pettegrew, July 6, 1988.
20. Molly Rockwell, letter to Ursula Niebuhr, undated, box 51, Reinhold Niebuhr Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My greatest debt is to the children of Norman Rockwell, who, despite their own artistic leanings and creative undertakings, took time to nurture mine. Jarvis Rockwell, Thomas Rockwell, and Peter Rockwell encouraged me to embark on this project and have been wholly supportive of my desire to write a definitive biography of their father. They gave me access to a large body of unpublished material and granted me permission to quote from it. They signed a legal contract that authorized the release of their father’s psychiatric records. Moreover, they agreed to be interviewed many times and provided me with essential insights into their father’s art and life.
Although he is in his eighties now, Tom Rockwell also found time to patiently answer hundreds of e-mail queries and locate a long-missing suitcase filled with pertinent papers. His radiant daughter, Abigail Rockwell, a singer and songwriter, has become a valued friend. Among family members, I also wish to acknowledge the good-natured help of Nova Rockwell, Cinnie Rockwell, Richard Rockwell, John Rockwell, Sally Hill Cooper, Mary Amy Orpen, and Nancy Punderson.
In the course of my research trips to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, I benefited enormously from the exemplary professionalism of the staff of the Norman Rockwell Museum. A singular institution, it houses the bulk of Rockwell’s artwork, as well as his writings and personal records. Museum director Laurie Norton Moffatt and chief curator Stephanie Plunkett could not have been more generous in sharing their time and expertise with me. Linda Szekely Pero, the former curator at the museum, facilitated my research and put many elusive documents at my disposal. Venus Van Ness, the current archivist, was unfailingly nimble in unearthing whatever seemingly vanished letter I needed. Thomas Mesquita, the museum registrar, helped locate image files of Rockwell’s work and was always willing to go back and look for ever higher resolutions.
I am indebted to Nancy Fitzpatrick, the owner of the Red Lion Inn, who found room for me on many occasions there and elsewhere in Stockbridge. In the summer of 2008 she installed me in her mother’s residence in The Knoll, a renovated apartment building on Main Street and the original home of Dr. Austen Riggs, the founder of the psychiatric hospital that bears his name. It was there that I had the good fortune to meet Adele Knight Boyd, an elegant widow who lived across the hall. As chance had it, she had been married to Dr. Robert Knight, who had been the medical director of the Austen Riggs Center in the years when Rockwell was treated there. Adele and I had many delightful conversations about Riggs and its colorful history. One day she surprised me by walking into her bedroom and pulling out, from beneath her bed, a large storage box that contained a complete collection of Dr. Knight’s appointments books. She suggested I might want to take a peek.
Additional material pertaining to Rockwell’s treatment with Erik Erikson came directly from the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In particular, I am indebted to Dr. M. Gerard Fromm, the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Director Emeritus of the Erikson Institute for Education and Research. I also owe thanks to Dr. Allen Wheelis and Dr. Anthony Philip, who were associated with Riggs early in their careers.
Lawrence J. Friedman, who wrote a biography of Erik Erikson, gave freely of his time and research. Robert Coles and Stephen Schlein, both of whom studied under Erikson, went out of their way to help me better understand his approach to psychotherapy.
I am indebted to Kai Erikson, who, though burdened with his own writing deadlines, helped me gain access to his father’s papers and granted me permission to quote from them. His sister, Sue Erikson, was also generous with her time.
A handful of art critics and scholars have written brilliantly about Rockwell’s work and American
culture. I have benefited from their insights and, in some cases, from inspired conversations over lunch or dinner. I refer chiefly to Dave Hickey, Robert Rosenblum, Adam Gopnik, Steven Heller, Karal Ann Marling, Walt Reed, Richard Halpern, Michele H. Bogart, and Susan E. Meyer.
Collectors of Rockwell’s work, especially George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, have been generous in allowing access to it. For their help in arranging interviews and furnishing me with reproductions, I am indebted to Connie Wethington in Lucas’s office and to Marvin Levy and Elizabeth Nye in Spielberg’s office.
Many other people agreed to be interviewed and provided valuable information, including Bob Abrams, Mary Alcantara, David Apatoff, Jonathan Best, Ruby Bridges, Anne Fitzpatrick Brown, Laurence Casper, Richard Clemens, Jan Cohn, Bernard Danenberg, James “Buddy” Edgerton, Joy Edgerton, Richard Estes, Sarah Faunce, Jane Fitzpatrick, Audrey Flack, William Gibson, Dan Grant, Richard Gregory, Elaine Gunn, Arlo Guthrie, Jo Haemer, Gary Hallwood, Don Hubert, Jr., Emilie Jungschaffer, Clemens Kalischer, Al Kooper, Norman Kreisman, Ed Locke, Virginia Loveless, Jack Masey, Diane Disney Miller, Helen Morgan, Diana Mugnaini, Howard Munce, Ross Perot, Nancy Punderson, Sherman Safford, Charlie Schudy, Jim Shuffleton, Ken Stuart, Jr., Patty Tang, Mary (Atherton) Varchaver, Scott Walton, John Waters, Elizabeth White, Marion Wilmott, Christopher Wren, and Linda Zonana.
I am grateful to the staff of various institutions for access to the letters and documents in their possession. I wish to acknowledge Matt Wribican, the archivist of the Andy Warhol Museum; Jillian Russo of the Art Students League; Diana Thompson at the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts; Corry Kanzenberg, the former curator at the National Scouting Museum (the official museum of the Boy Scouts of America); Marisa Bourgoin, archivist of the Corcoran Gallery of Art; Lewis Wyman, reference librarian at the Library of Congress; Christopher Abraham, archivist at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum; Randy Sowell, archivist at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum; Leslie Morris, curator at the Houghton Library, Harvard University; Kristen McDonald at Yale University Library; Barbara Allen, curator of the archives at the Stockbridge library; Diane Williams at Milton Academy; Sally Williams, Adam Husted, and Angie Park at the Brooklyn Museum; Lynne Crowley, archivist at the Larchmont Historical Society; Richard C. Leab in the local history department of the Berkshire Athenaeum; and John Favareau, local history librarian at the Yonkers Public Library.
American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell Page 52
