by Sam Juliano
Russian Ark, a 2002 historical drama film directed by Alexander Sokurov presents at the outset an unnamed narrator who drifts through the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. He explains that he is a ghost drifting through the rooms, where he encounters various real and fictional people from periods in the city’s 300-year history. A similar dramatic device was employed by Thornton Wilder in his classic work of Americana, Our Town, where a first-person narrative is sustained by an on stage narrator. In Robert Burleigh’s biographical picture book Hi, I’m Norman: The Story of American Illustrator Norman Rockwell the author negotiates a comparable expedient by having the iconic artist escort the reader on a tour of his art studio, which segues into a breezy autobiographical account concluding with the artist -still alive and well- informing the reader he must step back to attend to his latest creation.
Americana and picture book master Wendell Minor are synonymous. The veteran illustrator has imparted his ravishing tapestries in works written by astronauts, historians and environmentalists. His focus is exclusive to nature, the world around us and iconic figures from our past who have impacted our culture. He has collaborated with Burleigh several times, perhaps most memorably on Edward Hopper Paints His World (2014), their prior exploration of a seminal artist and purveyor of realism through oils and watercolor of modern American life. The critical success of a book on a subject they mutually revered no doubt led the pair to move forward on another venerated figure, one equally as resonant in the national consciousness.
After evocative Tom Sawyer-styled end papers depicting a young Norman standing in a field holding a frog we see the boy-tied youth holding his fishing rod with his faithful canine on the title page. A grown-up Norman (my guess is maybe in his mid 50s) is then shown on the dedication page welcoming unseen guests to his red barn studio presumably in a New England suburb. Rockwell explains that his studio transports him into another world and that he didn’t always work out of such idyllic artistic surroundings. Minor’s depiction is comfort incarnate. Walls are adorned with framed paintings, brushes are aplenty and a cover from The Saturday Evening Post attests to the artist’s most long running fame.
Burleigh and Minor depict a reading of David Copperfield from father and son that inspires the fledgling artist to pencil-sketch the famed characters from the great novel. Minor’s homespun tapestry exudes warmth and contentment. Similarly, the outdoors offered a new measure of inherent creativity as the young Norman painted a big lion’s head, enticing sports-minded friends sufficient intrigue to urge their talented cohort to offer up some encores. Minor’s watercolor, gouache and pencil mastery fosters domestic bliss, one where friends, family and even pets are dazzled by the creative process and sidewalk beautification. Norman chalked an impressive covered wagon canvas on the school’s blackboard under the enthusiastic auspices of his most supportive instructor, and his classmates were duly enthralled. Minor’s line drawings underscore the young artist’s developed mode of visual interpretation as what onlookers would imagine.
In answer to Burleigh’s assertion “You might say I entered art school raw – and came out cooked” in reference to Rockwell’s trials and tribulations in art school, Minor offers up a striking full page charcoal tapestry of the award winner proudly displaying his resplendent work. Then came the real world test and Rockwell’s earliest assignments: I drew Santas and angels for Christmas booklets. I drew body parts for medical texts. I illustrated a children’s book too. I was a young struggling artist, and every smidgen helped. The twenty-one year old Rockwell is shown brushing a winter scene of a hockey player under the watchful eye of a ledge pigeon. Some of Rockwell’s most famous paintings were created for the Saturday Evening Post (then the most popular magazine in America) and Minor’s magnificent recreation of the renowned “Dog Biting Man in Seat of Pants” cover rivals his Edward Hopper facsimiles in the previous mentioned collaboration.
A series of sublime vignettes advance the artist’s command of kid and adult models, as well as animals, which were as pictured far more difficult. But Rockwell persisted and his much-loved “Cousin Reginald Catches the Thanksgiving Turkey” was featured on the sixth cover of The Country Gentleman. Minor’s replication in miniature is fabulously-rendered. Rockwell’s fame peaked at the point when people saw themselves in his pictures. The artistic equivalent of the cinema’s Frank Capra, he “portrayed average people, everyday Americans, sometimes happy or sometimes confronting life’s little problems, but always with a bit of humor.” His portraits including irresistible characters like a grandfather laughing at his look-alike snowman, a schoolgirl waiting outside the principal’s office, a boy and girl watching the moon and a scrawny teenager lifting weights and Minor captures the humor in each with an endearing retro palette.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Rockwell, who was too old to fight responded with the creation of four paintings he named The Four Freedoms, which were based on a speech made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and which encompassed freedom of speech and worship, and freedom of want and fear. With wide distribution throughout the nation the paintings raised millions in war bonds. Again Minor brings soulful replication to Rockwell’s keen eye for familial interaction and a sense of purpose. Rockwell documented military maneuvers like paratroopers in training. Rockwell didn’t flinch when taking up the cause of civil rights where he was a staunch advocate of social justice and equality. His searing work The Problem We All Live With depicts an African-American girl bravely walking abreast with four US marshals who escort her into an all-white school. First shown as a work-in-progress, Minor depicts Rockwell adding color to a defining moment in history amidst hate language and gestures from segregationists.
The aging artist concludes his time machine fueled tour by painting the Liberty Bell for its birthday, including a capture of his pipe-wielding self affixing the ribbon while hearing voices from his past, identified by Burleigh as I hear my dad calling. I hear my pals in the old neighborhood calling. I hear my classmates calling. I hear the editors at the Post calling. I hear America calling. Rockwell always knew in such instances that it was time to draw another picture and he always obliged.
In afterwards, both Burleigh and Minor attest to lasting adoration for Rockwell’s work. The author points to “his amazingly descriptive pictures told stories that brought people together, illustrating common values spiced with a uniquely American humor. His life and work extended well over a half a century, encompassing major events that shaped the American consciousness. And his paintings reflected many of those changes.” Minor’s connection is distinctly intimate which is understandable in view of their vocational kinship. Professing passionate influence Minor asserts:
I have admired Norman Rockwell’s art since I was a boy growing up in Illinois. I would look for the latest edition of the Saturday Evening Post at our local drugstore newsstand, always keeping an eye out for a Rockwell cover. Those covers had a profound effect on me and my desire to become and artist. Rockwell’s ability to tell a whole story in one picture truly amazed me, and I credit the power of those pictures with inspiring me to become an illustrator.
A full page is committed to the Rockwell paintings seen and recreated by Minor in the book and a biographical timeline traces his life from birth in 1894 till his passing in 1978 at 84, and includes his professional milestones. Five iconic Rockwell paintings are shown in their full-bodied glory with fascinating capsules: Checkers (1928); Freedom from Fear (1943); Art Critic (1955); The Problem We All Live With (1964); Liberty Bell (1976). Quotes and resources follow in this rich and magnificent tribute to an American treasure. As for a final treat for Minor fans the back end papers depict a ravishing small town setting, with Rockwell bicycling by. This is surely a tour Caldecott voters will want to enlist for, one that is nothing less than a scene-specific and enthralling acclamation of a cultural landmark, pictorially orchestrated by one of our finest present-day artists. Hi I’m Norman: The Story of American Illustrator Norman Rockwell features a match made in heaven.
Note: This is the third entry in the 2019 Caldecott Medal Contender series. The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running. In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups at children’s book sites, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration. It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 15 to 20 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender. Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end. The awards will be announced in January, hence the reviews will continue until the early part of that month.