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More On Presidential Portraiture
—
Nine Great Twentieth Century Examples
A Second Follow-Up
To The Wall Street Journal
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Richard M. Nixon, 1968
Norman Rockwell.
© Cowles Communications, Inc.
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Norman Rockwell may
be the most underrated artist in American
history. Widely recognized as the
most popular painter in our national
history, his work as a portraitist
has not been taken seriously. Yet
he has produced some extraordinarily
trenchant and revealing portrait work.
This 1968 example, of President Richard
M. Nixon, employs the illustrator's
device of multiple images on a single
canvas. The result allows the artist
to give us both smiling and serious
versions of his subject. Rockwell's
well-known love of detail is used
here to good advantage. These two
heads are as convincingly modeled
as any of our "museum" or
"fine art" examples. The
background of bright color textured
by streak-creating solvents, is surprising
but effective.
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