Norman Rockwell

Forget about Eakins, Seargent, and Pollock. The greatest American artist is the man shown here, Norman Rockwell.

Despite Norman's own dissembling that he was a mere illustrator, just because his art was functional and he was a superb and effortless draftsman doesn't mean he wasn't an artist. I mean, for crying out loud, Norman's thumbnail sketches were more works of art than what most artists crank out as finished pieces.

>Norman's life, by the way, wasn't quite that of the wholesome traditional family values depicted in his paintings. His first two marriages were pretty open, and like many artists he had a rather Bohemian philosophy toward life. But when he was young, he had a pretty limited knowledge of the real world. So when he and a fellow artist found cheap rooms to use as a studio, they were always happy to talk to the young ladies that dropped by during the day to watch them work. It didn't strike them as odd that the girls didn't seem to have much to do during the day or that they showed up and chatted in their bathrobes. Then Norman's father came for a visit and recognized that his son had rented rooms in one of New York City's bordellos. So that idyllic and pleasant interlude in Norman's life came to an end.