Norman Rockwell was a prolific illustrator who made his name on the covers of the Saturday Evening Post from 1916 to 1963. The exhibition’s organisers claim his popularity lies in his ‘heart-warming depictions of everyday life’ and it is this America of apple-cheeked children and brave young soldiers that we associate with his schmaltzy technicolour photorealism.

Works such as The Party After the Party show how this twee sentimentality could sell lightbulbs as an advertisement for Edison Mazda, later to become General Electric, but Rockwell’s illustrations are most effective as magazine covers portraying humorous situations that the public could instantly relate to; they demonstrate a ‘funny because it’s true’ approach to art. In the exhibition’s exhaustive display of all 323 covers, kids can be seen sticking their tongues out at passing cars, a sailor chats up a woman in front of a fancy restaurant while the fat cats look on, all in the same flat, advertisement style. It is only later, at the beginning of the 1940s when the presence of WW2 can be felt and the Saturday Evening Post changes its layout, that Rockwell’s pictures become impressive. Gone is the standard white background and the obvious joke takes second place behind the artist’s imaginative compositions in works such as The Bridge Game and Gossip. The latter is an interesting study of expressions similar to the seventeenth-century Italian artist Annibale Carracci’s first experiments with caricature.

It is the illustrator’s later works that are really worth seeing. Portraits of Kennedy and Reagan and landmarks of the civil rights movement show the greatness of the American Dream tinged with sentimentality but also the all important knowledge of what makes an image of everyday life instantly striking. For this Rockwell became beloved by his public and admired as an artist as well as an illustrator.

Until Mar 27

MARIA HOWARD