Norman Rockwell paintings and sketches are covered in full within this website, along with great detail on the life and career of this highly talented American artist. Norman Rockwell first became famous as an illustrator for The Satruday Evening Post and you can see several of his charming cover designs further down the page which always aimed at reflecting the lives of normal American people.
Most of the best known paintings by Norman Rockwell came between the 1920s and 1960s and reflected an older generation of America with charming style in most paintings which appeals to many in the art public who find happiness within them. Typically people choose art for their own home which is positive and also in some way matches their own lives, and Rockwell had a habit of producing art which was accessible to the masses.
Norman Rockwell paintings were exceptionally detailed and accurately captured the portraits in each. Rockwell found prefered models who he used several times but did suffer as a professional illustrator when faced with short timelines with his work that never goes well with creativity and perfectionism, causing great frustration to this artist who held integrity and pride in all he produced.
In many ways the path of Norman Rockwell can be compared to the likes of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein who also both held relatively normal roles within illustration before moving onto become fully fledged artists with their own freedom of expression and opportunity to experiment to feed their creative desires and curiosities. Despite his constraints, much of his early illustration work still stands up well within the overall picture of his career.
Norman Rockwell actually had produced around 4,000 pieces of art work by the end of his career and these included paintings, illustrations and various other art mediums which he experimented with at different times in his career. There was general inconsistency in the reactions that the artist received from art critics, some of whom appreciated his work and talents whilst others simply saw him as a limited illustrator who did not have the depth to compete with the other major names around at that time.
After initially only covering family based topics as a magazine illustrator, Rockwell began to get acceptance as a fully fledged painter after experimenting with political comment within his work for the first time, such as one about racial integration for Look Magazine, which proved popular and later became a whole series that drew in new interest to his career from more art academics than had previously paid attention to his work.
Norman Rockwell has established himself as a highly respected artist within mainstream American art and many love his art even if they do not know much about his or other artists' careers. Many films have made reference to some of his paintings in various scenes over the past 50 years, the most famous including the likes of The Polar Express, Forrest Gump, Empire of the Sun and American Gangster.
