I’ve never heard of this series by Abbeville before, but I can imagine its period of popularity. For decades, encyclopedias had been all the rage, as door-to-door salesmen convinced housewives that their kids would be total dolts without having this year’s set. Eventually, people wanted something lighter than a set of encyclopedias, yet slightly deeper in development.

Publishers like Abbeville caught on with the trend, marrying “high-quality color reproductions” of artwork with insightful reviews. They cornered the market and would prove themselves unstoppable. Well, at least until the internet came along and online research took over the world, making books like this more a novelty than anything.

I’m still old enough, of course, to appreciate a physical book, so I actually really enjoyed this little thing. It’s not tiny, roughly the 5″x8″ size, so the images are large enough to get some detail, yet they can’t compare to what they must have been like on the front page of the Saturday Evening Post.

This little book is by no means an exhaustive study of Rockwell’s work, but rather a sampling of his Post covers, from early to late in his career. The man was undeniably a master painter, telling stories with his photographic-quality paintings. His characters may have been caricatures, but the realism with which he painted them make them feel like living and breathing caricatures, like your goofy neighbor kid or crazy uncle.

Rockwell is also a purely American artist, chronicling from year to year the sentiments, events, and even fashions of the early-to-mid 20th Century in the U.S. I recall as a child fawning over a collection of his Christmas-themed paintings in a thick, hard-cover volume my mom brought out every Thanksgiving. His insightful artwork has a place in the fabric of my own upbringing, and this stroll down memory lane has brought a lot of those memories back to the surface.

Some favorites that stand out and that I wouldn’t mind hanging in my office include “No Swimming,” “First Love,” and “The Runaway.” I suppose it’s obvious why I am so fond of these childhood-themed pieces. Perhaps my favorite piece of all, though, is “Saying Grace,” a painting I literally could study for hours. Rockwell’s attention to detail in that singular painting alone makes him one of my favorites.

Norman Rockwell held an incredible, well-practiced power to tell timeless stories within a single frame, and you’re sure to enjoy spending an afternoon with him sometime. You may not find this volume available anywhere (I haven’t checked), but any collection of his would be worth finding. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for more now, for sure.

©2021 E.T.