|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Other authors named Norman:
|
|
|
|
Author's popularity: 1
Vote:  
|
If you like or dislike this author in general or one or more of their quotes in particular, please give us your feedback by clicking on the icon to vote for, or the icon to vote against them.
|
|
Popularity: 0
Vote: | A face in the picture would bother me, so I'd rub it out with the turpentine and do it over. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Dignity is not a good expression-not for my pictures ayway. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Eisenhower had about the most expressive face I ever painted, I guess. Just like an actor's. Very mobile. When he talked, he used all the facial muscles. And he had a great, wide mouth that I liked. When he smiled, it was just like the sun came out. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Everyone in those days expected that art students were wild, licentious characters. We didn't know how to be, but we sure were anxious to learn. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Guess I never really belonged in Westchester. I was never really happy there. But the hard-dirt farmers in Vermont-when I got with them, it was like coming home. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Here in New England, the character is strong and unshakable. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I can take a lot of pats on the back. I love it when I get admiring letters from people. And, of course, I'd love it if the critics would notice me, too. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I didn't know what to expect from a famous movie star; maybe that he'd be sort of stuck-up, you know. But not Gary Cooper. He horsed around so much... that I had a hard time painting him. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I got a phone call from a Twentieth Century-Fox producer... asking me to go to Hollywood to paint pictures of the stars... the commisssion was to paint portraits of nine stars-Ann-Margret, Bing Crosby, Robert Cummigs, Van Heflin, Mike Connors, Alex Cord, Slim Pickens, Stefanie Powers, and Red Buttons... painting six of them is a lot of work. But I had to put them all in. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I had a couple of million dollars' worth of... stock once. And now it's not worth much more than wallpaper. I guess I just wasn't born to be rich. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I learned to draw everything except glamorous women. No matter how much I tried to make them look sexy, they always ended up looking silly... or like somebody's mother. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I sure did enjoy square-dancing. That was great fun. Great exercise, too. harde than chopping wood. You get a good caller and he'll run the legs off you. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I talk as I sketch, too, in order to keep their minds off what I'm doing so I'll get the most natural expression I can from them. Also, the talking helps to size up the subject's personality, so I can figure out better how to portray him. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I was asked to illustrate the classics of Mark Twain. He's one of my very favorite authors. I felt great! |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I would take the wrong approach for a teacher, I guess... But there was always someone in a class who would raise an objection to my way. They'd want to get into an argument with me. And I was no good at arguing. So I figured if that was what teaching was like, I better leave it to someone who knows how to maneuver an argument. I'd stick to what I knew-painting. So I didn't stay long at the Los Angeles County Artists School. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I'd be painting sometimes, and get the strangest feeling I was being watched. I'd look up and see faces pressed against the window or door screens. Then, when I noticed them, the people would want to come in and talk to me. Got very upset, too, when I was too busy. One time I remember a man drove his car clear across our lawn and parked it right in the middle of the grass. It was wild. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I'll never have enough time to paint all the pictures I'd like to. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I'm not going to be caught around here for any fool celebration. To hell with birthdays! |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I'm still about as pigeon-toed as you can get. But I learned to manage pretty well on a bike. Should have had a bicycle then, when I was a kid, but our family didn't have the money for such luxuries. I saved up to buy one myself a few years later. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I'm the oldest antique in town. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | I'm tired, but proud. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | I've always loved Dickens. And Henry James. Tolstoy, Dostoevski. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | If you look at that picture for the 1964 election, you'll see I showed three different poses of Johnson-two of them smiling, but one of them grim, just like when we walked in that room. Lord, but those eyes of his could be cold. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | It was a pretty rough neighborhood where I grew up The really tough places were over around Third Avenue where it ran into the Harlem River, but we weren't far away. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | It wouldn't be right for me to clown around when I'm painting a president. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Lady Bird Johnson had that extra-special Southern charm that you just can't resist. Mrs. Goldwater was charming, too. And she was the smart one. She really didn't want to be the First Lady at all. And she got her wish. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | My best efforts were some modern things that looked like very lousy Matisses. Thank God I had the sense to realize they were lousy, and leave Paris. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations. He's got to put all his talent and feeling into them! |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Right from the beginning, I always strived to capture everything I saw as completely as possible. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Some folks think I painted Lincoln from life, but I haven't been around that long. Not quite. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Some people have been kind enough to call me a fine artist. I've always called myself an illustrator. I'm not sure what the difference is. All I know is that whatever type of work I do, I try to give it my very best. Art has been my life. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | The '20s ended in an era of extravagance, sort of like the one we're in now. There was a big crash, but then the country picked itself up again, and we had some great years. Those were the days when American believed in itself. I was happy and proud to be painting it. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | The commonplaces of America are to me th richest subjects in art. Boys battling flies on vacant lots; little girls playing jacks on the front steps; old men plodding home at twilight-all thse things arouse feeling in me. |
Popularity: -1
Vote: | The Kennedys, they were great... I always admired President John Kennedy very much. He had a marvelous personality. A great, strong face to paint, too. Robert Kennedy was the one, though, I guess I enjoyed painting the most. His hair fascinated me. That wild, curly hair was something else again. I made a real study of his hair. They all have wonderful smiles, too, that whole family. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | The mouth is always wrong on a portrait, you know. But in India, they all commented mostly on just one thnig, their color. I had no idea that skin color was so important there. But everyone I painted in that country thought I made them look too dark. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | The remarks about my reaching the age of Social Security and coming to the end of the road, they jolted me. And that was good. Because I sure as hell had no intention of just sitting around for the rest of my life. So I'd whip out the paints and really go to it. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they're always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Things aren't much wilder now, I don't think, than they were back then. Of course I just read about all the goings-on now. Ha. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Travel is like a tonic to me. It's more than just getting away from the studio for a brief rest. I need it to recharge my batteries. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Very interesting for an old duffer like me to try his hand at something new. If I don't do that once in a while, I might just turn into a fossil, you know! |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | We got a good look at the Himalayas, which they tell me are about 28,000 feet high. I expected to be very impressed, but really, they didn't look any more picturesque to me than the Berkshires or the Green Mountains. Certainly not as pleasant-looking as the wooded mountains we have in New England. I'll leave those cold and barren slopes in Asia to the mountain climbers. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | When I came home on leave, I thought I would surely have changed into a dashing figure... just because I was dressed for the part. But my friends laughed when they saw me in my navy uniform. I guess I must have been a sight, but I didn't realize I looked that silly. And I was so proud to come home in that uniform! |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | When I go to farms or little towns, I am always surprised at the discontent I find. And New York, too often, has looked across the sea toward Europe. And all of us who turn our eyes away from what we have are missing life. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | You must first spend some time getting your model to relax. Then you'll get a natural expression. |
|
Biography
|
Norman Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November_8, 1978) was an early 20th century American painter. His works are usually considered both as patriotic and/or commercial. They have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States where Rockwell is most famous for a series of covers for The Saturday Evening Post, notably those painted during the 1940s and 1950s, especially the Four Freedoms series and Rosie the Riveter.
Biography
Born in New York City, he transferred from high school at the age of 16 to the Chase Art School. He then went on to the National Academy of Design, and finally, to the Art Students League, where he was taught by Thomas Fogarty and George Bridgman. Rockwell's early works were done for St. Nicholas Magazine, the Boy Scouts of America publication Boy's Life, and other juvenile publications.
As a student, Rockwell was given smaller, less important jobs, but his major breakthrough came in 1912 with his first book illustration for C.H. Claudy's Tell Me Why: Stories about Mother Nature.
During the First World War, he tried to enlist into the U.S. Navy but was refused entry because, being 6 feet tall and 140 pounds, he was eight pounds underweight. To compensate, he spent one night gorging himself on bananas, liquids and donuts, and was enlisted the next day. However, he was given the role of a military artist, and did not see any action during his tour of duty.
Rockwell moved to New Rochelle, New York at age 21 and shared a studio with the cartoonist Clyde Forsythe, who worked for The Saturday Evening Post. With Forsythe's help, he submitted his first successful cover painting to the Post in 1916, Boy with Baby Carriage published on May 20. Rockwell married Irene O'Connor, that same year; however, the couple divorced in 1930. He quickly remarried schoolteacher Mary Barstow, with whom he had three children – Jarvis, Thomas and Peter. In 1939, the Rockwell family moved to Arlington, Vermont, which seemed to inspire him to painting scenes of everyday, small town American life.
In 1943 during the Second World War, Rockwell completed the Four Freedoms series which was completed in seven months and resulted in him losing 15 pounds. The paintings were based on a speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who declared that there were four principles for universal rights:
Freedom from Want, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, and Freedom from Fear. The paintings were published in 1943 by The Saturday Evening Post. The U.S. Treasury Department later promoted war bonds by touring the originals to 16 cities.
That same year a fire in his studio destroyed numerous original paintings, costumes, and props. Later, in 1953, his wife Mary died unexpectedly, which resulted in Rockwell taking time off to grieve. It was during this break that he and his son Thomas produced his autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator, which was published in 1960. The Saturday Evening Post printed excerpts from this book in eight consecutive issues, the first issue containing Rockwell's famous Triple Self Portrait.
Rockwell married his third wife, retired schoolteacher Molly Punderson, in 1961. His last painting for the Post was published in 1963, marking the end of a publishing relationship that included 321 cover paintings. He spent the next 10 years painting for Look Magazine, where his work depicted his interests in civil rights, poverty and space exploration.
During his long career, he was commissioned to paint the portraits for Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, as well as those of other world figures, including Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jawaharlal Nehru.
Norman's ability to "get the point across" in one picture, and his flair for painstaking detail made him a favorite of the advertising industry. He was also commissioned to illustrate over 40 books including the ever popular Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. His annual contributions for the Boy Scout calendars (1925 - 1976), was only slightly overshadowed by his most popular of calendar works - the "Four Seasons" illustrations for Brown & Bigelow were published for 17 years beginning in 1947 and reproduced in various styles and sizes since 1964. Illustrations for booklets, catalogs, posters (particularly movie promotions), sheet music, stamps, playing cards, and murals (including "Yankee Doodle Dandy",which was completed in 1936 for the Nassau Inn in Princeton, New Jersey) rounded out Rockwell's oeuvre as an illustrator. In his later years, Rockwell began receiving more attention as a painter when he chose more serious subjects such as the series on racism for Look.
A custodianship of 574 of his original paintings and drawings was established with Rockwell's help near his home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the museum is still open today between May and October every year. Rockwell received in 1977 the Presidential Medal of Freedom for "vivid and affectionate portraits of our country", the United States of America's highest civilian honor.
Norman Rockwell passed away at age 84.
...(more on Wikipedia)
|
|
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Norman Rockwell".
|
|
|