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102 Favorite Paintings
Great Coffee Table book or use prints to frame or collage
- GenresArtNonfictionCanon
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1978
58 people want to read
About the author
Norman Rockwell
241 books46 followersNorman Percevel Rockwell was a 20th century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States, where Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over more than four decades. Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter (although his Rosie was reproduced less than others of the day), Saying Grace (1951), and the Four Freedoms series.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 14, 2025
4.5 stars
"Norman Rockwell created a world that, because of its traditional elements, seems familiar to all of us, yet is recognizably his and his alone. He is an American original who has left his mark not by effecting radical change but rather by giving old subjects his own, inimitable inflection. His career has been an ode to the ordinary, a triumph of common sense and understatement." -- on page 11
Originally published in the year of his passing (1978), 102 Favorite Paintings is a wonderful collection of five decades worth of painter/illustrator Norman Rockwell's Americana-themed artwork, which was often featured on the cover of the long-defunct Saturday Evening Post periodical. If you have a favorite - mine include 'Homecoming G.I.' (1945), with a young soldier returning after WWII to his jubilant parents and much younger siblings at their tenement home; and 'The Runaway' (1958), with a state trooper keeping a watchful eye on an absconding young boy at a diner counter - it is very likely included in this volume. Although sometimes met with criticism because his output was too safe and/or not edgy enough, Rockwell could occasionally deliver a surprise, such as the indelible 'The Problem We All Live With' (1964), which dramatized six year-old Ruby Bridges being escorted by federal marshals into an elementary school (its exterior walls feature a scrawled racial slur and stains of projectile rotten tomatoes) during desegregation in the Civil Rights Movement. Whatever the opinion on him may be, paging through his 'hits' is like a still-frame time machine in full effect.
"Norman Rockwell created a world that, because of its traditional elements, seems familiar to all of us, yet is recognizably his and his alone. He is an American original who has left his mark not by effecting radical change but rather by giving old subjects his own, inimitable inflection. His career has been an ode to the ordinary, a triumph of common sense and understatement." -- on page 11
Originally published in the year of his passing (1978), 102 Favorite Paintings is a wonderful collection of five decades worth of painter/illustrator Norman Rockwell's Americana-themed artwork, which was often featured on the cover of the long-defunct Saturday Evening Post periodical. If you have a favorite - mine include 'Homecoming G.I.' (1945), with a young soldier returning after WWII to his jubilant parents and much younger siblings at their tenement home; and 'The Runaway' (1958), with a state trooper keeping a watchful eye on an absconding young boy at a diner counter - it is very likely included in this volume. Although sometimes met with criticism because his output was too safe and/or not edgy enough, Rockwell could occasionally deliver a surprise, such as the indelible 'The Problem We All Live With' (1964), which dramatized six year-old Ruby Bridges being escorted by federal marshals into an elementary school (its exterior walls feature a scrawled racial slur and stains of projectile rotten tomatoes) during desegregation in the Civil Rights Movement. Whatever the opinion on him may be, paging through his 'hits' is like a still-frame time machine in full effect.
November 18, 2021
For the members of a now-fading generation, Norman Rockwell’s paintings evoke a time and place they remember fondly. For later generations, they give an insight into an era far different from their own. Some “sophisticated” viewers will apply their own standards in order to find reasons to sneer at these works, or deride them for not sharing the viewers’ values and perceptions. This is unfortunate. The paintings should be understood for what they meant at the time they were created and the viewers they were created for.
That sort of over-interpretation will also miss the depth of Rockwell’s skill not only as a technician but as someone who could capture the personalities of the characters he put on his canvases. Their faces, their body language, their dress, and the situations they were placed in all turn them from characters into people the viewer could imagine meeting on the street and wouldn’t mind doing so.
The foregrounds and backgrounds too, not only provide information about the characters but focus the viewer on them. In some paintings, there’s no foreground or background at all, just the characters. Sometimes, like in the 1950 painting “Shuffleton’s Barbershop,” the shop in the foreground is as much a character as the three musicians gathered in the back room.
Rockwell provided this information through the details he added to each image. Each was added thoughtfully, yet each could easily be missed, at least consciously. But in these paintings the whole is clearly greater than the sum of the parts. Taken together, the details of the people and the setting combine to tell a story.
To be sure, Rockwell’s paintings captured only a certain part of America. Almost all of the people in the paintings are white and almost all are male, especially boys. It wasn’t until 1959’s “A Family Tree” or 1961’s “The Golden Rule” that non-white faces took a more prominent place. But that reflects the America Rockwell knew. “Should” he have known more, or reflected more? Now we’re applying a standard that simply didn’t exist when the images were painted.
Christopher Finch’s introduction and brief discussion of each featured painting are perhaps a bit more effusive than they need to be, but this book is not a volume of art criticism, and the articles do help the casual viewer see things they might not have noticed otherwise.
Recommended.
That sort of over-interpretation will also miss the depth of Rockwell’s skill not only as a technician but as someone who could capture the personalities of the characters he put on his canvases. Their faces, their body language, their dress, and the situations they were placed in all turn them from characters into people the viewer could imagine meeting on the street and wouldn’t mind doing so.
The foregrounds and backgrounds too, not only provide information about the characters but focus the viewer on them. In some paintings, there’s no foreground or background at all, just the characters. Sometimes, like in the 1950 painting “Shuffleton’s Barbershop,” the shop in the foreground is as much a character as the three musicians gathered in the back room.
Rockwell provided this information through the details he added to each image. Each was added thoughtfully, yet each could easily be missed, at least consciously. But in these paintings the whole is clearly greater than the sum of the parts. Taken together, the details of the people and the setting combine to tell a story.
To be sure, Rockwell’s paintings captured only a certain part of America. Almost all of the people in the paintings are white and almost all are male, especially boys. It wasn’t until 1959’s “A Family Tree” or 1961’s “The Golden Rule” that non-white faces took a more prominent place. But that reflects the America Rockwell knew. “Should” he have known more, or reflected more? Now we’re applying a standard that simply didn’t exist when the images were painted.
Christopher Finch’s introduction and brief discussion of each featured painting are perhaps a bit more effusive than they need to be, but this book is not a volume of art criticism, and the articles do help the casual viewer see things they might not have noticed otherwise.
Recommended.
July 3, 2025
I enjoy Norman Rockwell's work as much as the next americana loving hoe, but honestly, much of the writing regarding the paintings done by Rockwell seems to almost put him on a pedestal as an artist? Like it often ignored the social and political context that Rockwell either fed into or Finch ignored it altogether, which felt kind of disingenuous to both the art in general (yes, I know he was a commercial artist) and maybe even Rockwell himself? Idk, talking about Freedom From Want and not even mentioning the Bulosan essay or anonymizing Ruby Bridges in The Problem We All Live With as a "little black girl" without so much as mentioning her name feels distinctly wrong and almost diminishing. Also not even including Rosie the Riveter is lowkey diabolical.
October 4, 2019
102 classics. Text on the left page, print on the right - makes it very easy to get the facts. Nice big book, but non-glossy makes these prints nice, but since I have other Rockwell books with better reproductions, I can see the difference. So, more like 4.5 stars.
April 6, 2021
4.5stars
Including works ranging from 1916 to 1969, the only improvement that could be made would have been to include more paintings. Full page paintings allow the pieces to shine and there is a description or anecdotal reference accompanying each.
Including works ranging from 1916 to 1969, the only improvement that could be made would have been to include more paintings. Full page paintings allow the pieces to shine and there is a description or anecdotal reference accompanying each.
February 3, 2021
It was very interesting to read about the painter and some history behind his work.
March 17, 2025
I really enjoy Norman Rockwell’s work so this was a wonderful book.
May 26, 2019
One of my favorite artists. Old-fashioned paintings in today's world but I love them. Mr Rockwell had a way of convening such honest emotion in the faces of his subjects. I always feel I know what the people in his paintings are feeling.
June 23, 2012
Page 150 describes the painting The Problem We All Live With Jan. 14, 1964. Page 151 shows Norman Rockwell's painting of Ruby Bridges and the U.S. Marshalls.
July 7, 2013
It's fun to look at all those illustrations of his. I am not a big fan though.
It gets a 4 instead of a three because it is a wonderful collection.
It gets a 4 instead of a three because it is a wonderful collection.
June 8, 2014
I need to integrate his work into Humanities next year. I enjoyed some of the explanations behind the paintings.
March 31, 2015
I love Normal Rockwell's artwork and this book included lot's of plates that I hadn't seen before. I did not read the entire book, just sections that interested me.
February 4, 2016
Rockwell captures human emotion in an incredible way. Few artists can make me laugh out loud like he can.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews