If you’re of a certain age, you remember when the Saturday Evening Post was a societal media staple. As were its covers. As were those covers’ most famous illustrator: Norman Rockwell.
Thanks to the Tampa Museum of Art’s “American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell,” which just finished a two-month run, locals were privileged to see and reflect on an American original who was much more than a magazine-cover illustrator. And thanks to a last-minute, last-weekend schedule insertion, I was, finally, among the privileged.
“American Chronicles” was a retrospective beyond nostalgia. It was a reminder that Rockwell was more than a pop-culture illustrator. He was also more than his whimsically self-assessed “Dickens of the paint brush.” The 100-plus works on exhibit underscored his portraiture, his attention to detail, his sense of narrative and wry humor, his sentimentality, his patriotism–and his civil rights promotion.
His popularity transcended America. In foreign countries his images were interpreted as the essence of American culture.