Norman Rockwell. Photograph by Underwood Archives / Getty
The heartening narrative behind My Mother (Soldier with French Woman) upholds Norman Rockwell’s reputation as the quintessential storyteller of 20th century American life. The painting features a rosy-cheeked infantryman proudly presenting an image of his mother to a French woman, as she kindly looks on–knitting needles in hand. Thematically, the work exemplifies the wholesome simplicity of Rockwell’s imagined world, while the painter’s unyielding attention to detail allows the scene to effortlessly unfold before our eyes.
Norman Rockwell, My Mother (Soldier with French Woman), 1918. Estimate $300,000 - 500,000. 20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, New York.
Featured on the December 19, 1918 issue of Life magazine, Norman Rockwell’s My Mother (Soldier with French Woman) captures the zeitgeist of a victorious nation still in the emotional throes of war. Undertaken when Rockwell’s prominence was on the rise with his popular Post covers from 1916, the present work demonstrates the more expressive and painterly execution that characterizes his works through the 1930s, before he incorporated photography into his technical process. Published two weeks after President Woodrow Wilson departed for the Paris Peace Conference, My Mother (Soldier with French Woman) captures the tensions still felt by a nation whose boys were not yet home. Of the period, Rockwell remarked “everyone in the country is thinking along the same lines, the war penetrates into everyone's life…in 1917 I couldn't read a newspaper without finding an idea for a cover.”
Vacation! (Country Gentleman) in the August 25, 1917 issue of Country Gentleman. My Mother (Soldier with French Woman) on the cover of Life, December 19, 1918.
Executed when Norman Rockwell was just 25 years old, Vacation! (Country Gentleman) is emblematic of the light-hearted charm of the artist’s early work. While the painter graced the covers of publications like Life magazine and The Saturday Evening Post throughout his career, Rockwell only produced paintings for Country Gentleman between 1917 to 1922. These playful covers were centered around the adventures of Chuck Peterskin, the sprightly Doolittle brothers and their bookish, metropolitan cousin, Reginald Claude Fitzhugh–all of whom were first introduced in the August 25, 1917 issue of the magazine. In Vacation!, Tubby Doolittle buoyantly leads the way, Rusty Doolittle tipping his hat with an impish grin on his face, while cousin Reginald moodily trails behind. Though Rockwell explored weightier themes in his late career—particularly during the 1960s—this piece is representative of his early works depicting children: adventurous, hopeful, and up to no good. The nuance and detail with which Rockwell renders the three boys–from Reginald’s immaculate hat to the small but conspicuous hole in Tubby’s pocket—Rockwell captures the varied glory of America’s youth in Vacation!.
Norman Rockwell, Vacation! (Country Gentleman), 1919. Estimate $250,000 - 450,000. 20th Century and Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session, New York.
Both images, as well as The Young Graduate (Big Day) and The Young Graduate, come to auction from the formidable collection of storied television producers Thomas Miller and Robert Boyett, who found an affinity with Rockwell’s visual narrative. The legendary couple behind Miller-Boyett Productions developed some of the most influential and iconic sitcoms in television history—from Happy Days to Laverne & Shirley to Full House.
"In each episode of our television shows, we made sure to have characters make some form of human connection. Rockwell did the very same." —Robert Boyett
The Peephole, which sold for $2,087,000 in Phillips' December 2020 New York Evening Sale, likewise came from the couple's collection—and like this season's offerings, first appeared in periodical form. It graced the cover of the August 30, 1958 issue of The Saturday Evening Post and was gifted from the artist to the publication's editor Peter Elliott Schruth. The painting’s subject of a pitcher winding up is shown from the unconventional vantage point of a knothole in a wooden fence, positioning the viewer as an eager child covertly watching a baseball game.The Rockwell pictures that Mr. Boyett and Mr. Miller, who died in 2020, collected offer a compelling dialogue between three great American storytellers.
Norman Rockwell, The Young Graduate (Big Day) and The Young Graduate: Two works, 1959. Estimate $50,000 - 70,000. 20th Century and Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session, New York.
Discover More from 20th Century and Contemporary Art >
Recommended Reading
The Statesman, the Magnate, and the Original 'Superyacht' >
Jean Dubuffet: An Artist and an Alchemist >