Norman Rockwell's pictures tell stories - of children growing up and of couples growing old - that make us laugh with warm hearted recognition. Rockwell was a master humorist with an infallible sense of the dramatic moment. Like a movie director, he determined the pose and facial expression on each character, positioning each prop, and lighted his sets for maximum scenic effect.
Rockwell drew his images from American life during the first half of the twentieth century, but they cast a long shadow - in the grip his visual stories have on Americans more that thirty years after his death and in a legacy that emphasizes the foibles and fantasies of ordinary people and that endures in the work of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Both felt the power of the Rockwell magazine covers they encountered as boys. American Graffiti, Star Wars, E.T.:The Extraterrestrial, the "Indiana Jones" series, Saving Private Ryan, and dozens of other movies and cartoons echo subtexts - about love of country, personal honor, and the value of the family - found in Rockwell's pictures. The painter's stories, and the ideals they reflect, facinated these two friends and sometime collaborators and drew them to value, and collect, the work of Norman Rockwell.
