Norman Rockwell: America’s storyteller

Abigail Haber | The New Criterion | 13th July 2018

Being called a ‘commercial illustrator’ is sometimes a sly put-down. Rockwell was an illustrator and his work has its faults – “it often lacks nuance or subtlety”. However, he was brilliant at communicating an idea succinctly. His “Four Freedoms” series of paintings appeared first simply as magazine covers but they “profoundly altered the course of the war”.