Book Review: The Best of Norman Rockwell

This is a splendid collection of Norman Rockwell's work. The book is larger than I thought it would be given the price. It's a 136 page hardcover.

The pieces are selected by Tom Rockwell, the second of the artist's three sons. It's the best-of so it doesn't have all the pieces he painted. There's only a few selected from his 300 over covers at The Saturday Evening Post — that's a separate book by itself, called Norman Rockwell 332 Magazine Covers (amazon.com).

The paintings included are from 1910s to 1960s, arranged chronologically. It's a great way to see how his work as evolved over time. They are all printed full page. There's not much text except for the credits.

Besides the beautiful illustrations, there are also some sketches included. They are some portrait drawings and full composition. If I've not read the captions, I would have guessed they are black and white reproduction of his paintings. The sketches are quite unexpected, in part because they are rarely seen and in this book they are presented before the coloured illustrations.

There's something about the printing that hard to pinpoint. I don't know if it's the reproduction or maybe Rockwell painted it that way, but some of covers for The Saturday Evening Post look slightly yellow or aged. It's impossible to tell unless there's an original to compare to. The quality is still high in terms of details.

It's a fantastic collection.

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