American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell - Tapa dura

"In her engaging and ultimately sad biography of Norman Rockwell, Deborah Solomon fills in the partly known life of one of America's most famous and popular illustrator-artists . . . Ms. Solomon's book fully justifies a fresh look at his life. An art critic and author of biographies of Joseph Cornell and Jackson Pollock and a frequent contributor to The New York Times, she offers something new, entertaining and disturbing. Her challenge was to explain a life utterly different from Rockwell's humorous and optimistic paintings. She has told his story with a breadth of facts and narrative finesse. It is a revelation." --John Wilmerding, The New York Times "Deborah Solomon has created a biography as vivid and touching as a Rockwell interior. This is the definitive biography of an American master who came in through the back door." --Steve Martin, author of An Object of Beauty "American Mirror is a masterpiece--vivid, forthright and insightful. Through superb research and keen interpretation, Deborah Solomon tells the story of an artist so many thought they knew well, and perhaps did not know at all. An epic achievement." --Laurie Norton Moffatt, director of the Norman Rockwell Museum "Norman Rockwell turns out not to have lived in the America he invented, the republic of station wagons, Santa Claus, and good citizenship. Deborah Solomon offers up a textured portrait of the man who carried no pictures of his family and never met a therapist he didn't like. Solomon masters foreground, background, and middle ground in this taut, beautifully written biography." --Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra: A Life and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography "Norman Rockwell remains our country's most beloved, most reviled, and most misunderstood painter. In American Mirror, Deborah Solomon tells his remarkable story with uncommon intelligence and grace." --Roz Chast, New Yorker cartoonist "Deborah Solomon has done the culture a huge favor by placing Norman Rockwell among the most important American artists of the twentieth century. She reveals Rockwell in all his contradictions--celebrant of family values but indifferent husband, self-professed New Englander but restless traveler, apolitical for most of his life but by the end a passionate believer in civil rights. This is a great biography of a singular American genius, who has long deserved it." --Bruce McCall, New Yorker illustrator "In American Mirror, Deborah Solomon has set herself, pointillist detail by detail, to unraveling the mystery of Norman Rockwell--the friendliest of painters who turns out to be the most complex of men. This is that rarest of books: the biography as page-turner, leading you effortlessly onwards." --Daphne Merkin, author of Enchantment "Deborah Solomon's beautiful, complex life of Norman Rockwell shows how his beloved pictures--many of which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post--expressed Americans' hopes for the nation, even though they did not often show the real America." --Alan Brinkley, author of The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century "Solomon's book is deeply researched, vigorously argued, and very well written." --Christopher Benfey, The New York Review of Books "[A] highly readable, illuminating book . . . Solomon is blessedly free of art-world blather or snobbery, writing in a style that balances elegance, irony and straightforward storytelling." --Maria Puente, USA Today "Don't be fooled by the controversy into thinking that this book is about Rockwell's sexual impulses. It isn't. Solomon traces his evolution as an artist, laying it alongside struggles in his own life. The result is a fascinating portrait of an underappreciated and often ridiculed artist." --Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg (Best Books of 2013) "American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell is a masterpiece of the biographer's art." --Lee Siegel, The New Yorker's "Page-Turner" blog "Esteemed art critic and biographer Solomon turns our perception of Norman Rockwell inside out in this fast-paced yet richly interpretative inquiry . . . Solomon's penetrating and commanding biography is brimming with surprising details and provocative juxtapositions." --Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review) "In anticipation of Thanksgiving, every American who cherishes the traditions that make this country great should acquire a copy of American Mirror, Deborah Solomon's brilliantly insightful chronicle of the life of illustrator Norman Rockwell." --Jonathan Lopez, The Wall Street Journal "American Mirror is a book of dazzling and accomplished detail." --Ben Davis, Slate "[Deborah Solomon's] Rockwell biography is well-researched; her prose intelligent, accessible and touched occasionally with humor; her readings of Rockwell's paintings sharp and sensible." --Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "[American Mirror] is a biography of the highest caliber . . . Solomon's intimate language is complemented by brisk pacing, providing a narrative that feels refreshing, nimble, and keyed into the present." --Rebecca Rubenstein, Kirkus Reviews "Rockwell is a beloved figure in American art, and Solomon's compelling portrait offers the attention and insight that this complex man deserves." --Alice Cary, Bookpage "[A] wonderful biography. . . . [Deborah Solomon] does a beautiful job of rescuing a man who became something of a cliche and making him fresh again." --Garrison Keillor, Tampa Bay Times

Norman Rockwell, as much as Walt Disney or Ronald Reagan, provided America with a mirror of its dreams and aspirations. As the star illustrator for The Saturday Evening Post for nearly half a century, Rockwell portrayed a fantasy of civic togetherness, of American decency and good cheer. Or, as Deborah Solomon writes in her authoritative new biography, he painted "a history of the American people that had never happened." Who was Norman Rockwell? Behind the folksy, pipe-smoking facade lay a surprisingly complex figure-a lonely man all too conscious of his inadequacies. Solomon describes him as an obsessive personality who wore his shoes too small, washed his paintings with Ivory Soap, and relied on the redemptive power of storytelling to stave off depression. He wound up in treatment with Erik Erikson, the influential psychotherapist. American Mirror draws on unpublished papers to explore the relationship between Rockwell's anguished creativity and his genius for reflecting American innocence. "The thrill of his work," writes Solomon, "is that he was able to use the commercial form of magazine illustration to thrash out his private obsessions." In American Mirror, Solomon, a biographer and art critic, trains her perceptive eye on both the art and the man. She also brilliantly chronicles the visual history of American journalism and the battle pitting photography against illustration.