Norman Rockwell Revisited : Long Thought to Be a Painter Just for Squares, the Master of Feel-Good Americana Gets a Modern Makeover as His Work Is Shown in Atlanta

Beginning of article

In pre-television times, Americans got their images from the printed page, where they could linger over them as long as they wanted. For both sentimental impact and delicious detail, there was no printed-page artist like Norman Rockwell. From 1916 to 1963 his homespun illustrations of heartwarming moments in everyday life graced the covers of 322 issues of The Saturday Evening Post. In 1943, prints of Rockwell's patriotic "Four Freedoms" paintings were bought by--and this is not a typo--25 million people. So why has it taken until now for somebody to mount a retrospective as comprehensive as "Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People," at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta through Jan. 30? (It then embarks on a six-stop tour culminating at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2001.)

The first thing you need to know about Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) is that his paintings were intended primarily for reproduction. Rockwell's art is …