About the Program
In this Encore Booknotes from 2001, author Laura Claridge discusses her biography of artist Norman Rockwell with host Brian Lamb. The book, the first comprehensive biography of the illustrator, is based upon interviews and previously unpublished family archives - including the artist's personal journal. According to Claridge, Rockwell was a driven workaholic who had three complicated marriages. He was also a distant father —a reality at odds with his widely held all-American-father image. Ms. Claridge contends that Norman Rockwell's covers for the Saturday Evening Post made him a twentieth-century American icon. However, the popularity of his idealized depictions of middle-class life relegated his work to that of an illustrator rather than a "real" artist."