American Mirror--The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell

August 12, 2013
In this well-paced, insightful biography of the iconic illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post, art critic Solomon (Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell) reveals an enormously complicated man whose wholesome vision of America was not merely commercial kitsch, but art that sprung from an emotional life fraught with anxiety, depression, and self-doubt. This sympathetic portrait depicts a repressed and humble Rockwell—a fastidious realist whose style and obsessions clashed with the values of modernism. Thrice married and an apathetic husband, he clearly preferred the companionship of male friends and was likely a closeted homosexual. Rockwell also had an obsessive-compulsive personality and received therapy from the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, who became a crutch as his second wife slipped into manic alcoholism. Solomon effectively refutes common misperceptions of his work, showing that Rockwell did not promote stereotypes, suburban conformity, or cater his work to the Post’s demands. In addition, the author perceptively highlights the paintings’ narrative intelligence, comedy, and technical skill. Though Solomon opts to simplify and quickly dismiss criticism of Rockwell (such as Dwight Macdonald’s), her substantive narrative captures the abundant complexities of this unusual artist, and reclaims him as a master storyteller. 8 pages of color illus. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM.

November 15, 2013
An absorbing biography detailing the public and private hazards of being America's favorite painter. Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) may seem an unusual subject for Solomon, who previously explored the abstract universes of Joseph Cornell (Utopia Parkway, 1997) and Jackson Pollock (1987) and "grew up gazing at a Helen Frankenthaler poster" in her bedroom. In her latest life story, the author is both scourge and defender. On a personal level, she doesn't much like Rockwell--and he does come across as chilly. Wholly devoted to his work and given to bouts of depression, he was remote from his family, his friends and most of his subjects; even the accidental death of a young boy who posed for him drew little emotion. "Phobic about dirt and germs," writes the author, "he cleaned his studio several times a day." Although there's no evidence that he was gay, he much preferred the company of men and boys in both life and art. His first wife fled, his second wife drank herself into an early grave, and his third (and happiest) wife slept in another room. His life was at odds with his image; he drew covers for a magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, which he couldn't stand and was the official artist for the Boy Scouts of America even though he knew or cared little about Scouting. Was he a mere illustrator, as the critics claimed, or a skilled visual storyteller in the tradition of the great Renaissance painters he worshipped? For Solomon, his paintings are representational Rorschachs of a lonely life, dramas about being an outsider, essays on the act of watching--whether they involve diners staring at an old woman as she prays, a town-hall crowd looking at a speaker or a young girl gazing in a mirror. Is looking at a Rockwell less fulfilling than looking at a de Kooning? Solomon doesn't think so; neither did de Kooning. A sobering but ultimately sympathetic portrait balanced by the author's critical sense and buoyed by her engaging style.

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Starred review from November 1, 2013
Esteemed art critic and biographer Solomon turns our perception of Norman Rockwell inside out in this fast-paced yet richly interpretative inquiry. Rockwell became famous for creating 323 meticulously rendered, witty, and touching covers for the spectacularly popular Saturday Evening Post between 1916 and 1962. Precise in their detail and expressive in their psychology, Rockwell's narrative depictions of all-American small-town life are charming and rascally, yet Solomon discerns sorrow. She reads his many portraits of exuberant boys as a rewriting of his own unhappy past as a runty kid in cramped New York apartments. Drawing was his solace and illustration his goal, though for all his success, he felt anachronistic as abstract expressionism flourished, and his fastidious realism seemed quaint. But that wasn't his greatest source of frustration. A workaholic neat-freak, Rockwellwhose first wife divorced him due to mental cruelty, and whose second, the mother of his three sons, became an institutionalized alcoholicwas happiest in the company of young men. As Solomon points out manifestations of homoerotic desires in Rockwell's brilliantly composed paintings, her sensitivity to his struggles deepen appreciation for his virtuosic artistry and for his valor in using his work to champion civil rights and nuclear disarmament. Solomon's penetrating and commanding biography is brimming with surprising details and provocative juxtapositions, just like Rockwell's mesmerizing paintings.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2013

Praised for her biographies of Jackson Pollock and Joseph Cornell, noted art critic Solomon makes a surprise leap to rock-solid Americana artist Norman Rockwell. But as she says, Rockwell painted "a history of the American people that had never happened," and she goes on to detail his not-so-apple-pie personality.

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October 1, 2013

An America of hope and optimism; kindly folks united in the pursuit of the good. This was the fantasy image that Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) presented and one for which he was loved--and also dismissed--by many. His works provided an alternative vision to the tumultuous times of the first half of the 20th century, even if it never really existed beyond the covers of the Saturday Evening Post. Solomon (biographer of Jackson Pollock and Joseph Cornell) has studied the man behind the work, and the truth is far darker than one would expect. She portrays Rockwell as a small man who worshipped the robust athletic ideal, an insecure artist in spite of major acclaim, and a married man who had little real family life and who found consolation, later on, in psychoanalytic therapy. The happy-go-lucky freckled subjects in Rockwell's art had no reality in his world of depression and obsessive cleanliness. The author combines her skills as an art historian with empathy for this rather sad man, examining the world of journalism and the competition between illustration and photography as the background for the life of Norman Rockwell. VERDICT An excellent overview of the period, with a touching portrayal of the man behind the images that cheered a nation.--Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York

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June 15, 2014
Solomon ("Utopia Parkway") meticulously researches beloved American artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell's life. She draws on letters, journals, newspaper clippings, Rockwell's autobiography, and other authoritative resources to deliver a detailed description of all aspects of his life, including his depression, artistic insecurity, and struggle to become a true artist. Andrea Gallo narrates with perfect intonation and accents, but she cannot hide Solomon's seeming contempt of Rockwell. The author uses every opportunity to pin the artist as a closeted gay, stretching at times to ridiculous proportions. In trying to interpret Rockwell's camping-journal statement that he "stripped and frolicked" near a waterfall as a sure sign of his hidden homosexuality, Solomon points out that he wrote the word "frolicked", which includes the word "licked". VERDICT Gallo's pleasurable tone keeps the well-paced story clipping along, and despite Solomon's obvious bias against Rockwell, the details are colorful and descriptive, bringing to life Rockwell, his family, friends, and the times in which they lived. ["An excellent overview of the period, with a touching portrayal of the man behind the images that cheered a nation," read the review of the Farrar hc, "LJ" 10/1/13.]--Susan Herr, Bulverde/Spring Branch Lib., TX

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.