Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People by Norman Rockwell, Maureen Hart Hennessey, Judy L. Larson; 1999. Hardcover. (Really Big)

Accompanying the first major traveling exhibition of works by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), this volume presents a complete reappraisal of one of America's most beloved artists. Contributors from a wide range of fields -- including leading art historians, cultural critics, a renowned child psychiatrist, and a leading graphic designer -- shed new light on the complexity of Rockwell's art and his place as a shaper of mass-media imagery.Stunning colorplates reproduce Rockwell's paintings in crisp detail, and the essays set them in fresh contexts, discussing such themes as Rockwell's urban scenes; the reaction by both black and white Southerners to Rockwell's historic civil rights painting The Problem We All Live With; and Rockwell's role ill the development of American illustration. Above all, this important volume examines Norman Rockwell's critical place in 20th-century American culture.