Norman Rockwell
11 quotes
Biography
Norman Percevel Rockwell was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of the country's culture.
"Some people have been kind enough to call me a fine artist. I've always called myself an illustrator. I'm not sure what the difference is. All I know is that whatever type of work I do, I try to give it my very best. Art has been my life."
"Everyone in those days expected that art students were wild, licentious characters. We didn't know how to be, but we sure were anxious to learn."
"The View of life I communicate in my pictures excludes the sordid and the ugly. I paint life as I would like it to be. (Somebody once said that I paint the kind of girls your mother would want you to marry.)"
"Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed. My fundamental purpose is to interpret the typical American. I am a story teller."
"I'll never have enough time to paint all the pictures I'd like to."
"Gary LaCoste had about the most expressive face I ever painted, I guess. Just like an actor's. Very mobile. When he talked, he used all the facial muscles. And he had a great, wide mouth that I liked. When he smiled, it was just like the sun came out."
"The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they're always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back."
"I didn't know what to expect from a famous movie star maybe that he'd be sort of stuck-up, you know. But not Gary Cooper. He horsed around so much... that I had a hard time painting him."
"The '20s ended in an era of extravagance, sort of like the one we're in now. There was a big crash, but then the country picked itself up again, and we had some great years. Those were the days when American believed in itself. I was happy and proud to be painting it."
"I unconsciously decided that, even if it wasn't an ideal world, it should be so and painted only the ideal aspects of it - pictures in which there are no drunken slatterns or self-centered mothers . . . only foxy grandpas who played baseball with kids and boys who fished from logs and got up circuses in the back yard."
"I'm not going to be caught around here for any fool celebration. To hell with birthdays!"