Title: Hidden in
Plain Sight: The Other People in Norman Rockwell’s America
Author: Jane Allen
Petrick
Author’s Website: www.janeallenpetrick.com
Genre: Narrative
Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780989260114
Available from: Ingram, Barnes &
Noble, iBookstore, Sony, Kobo, Amazon
Name of Reviewer:
Publisher: Readers’ Favorite
Reviewer’s Rating: Five Stars
Reviewed by Jack Magnus originally for Readers Favorite
In Hidden in Plain Sight: The Other People in Norman
Rockwell's America, author Jane Allen Petrick tells the story of the Rockwell
models who were people of color. She also brings to life a Norman Rockwell that
the vast majority of people never knew -- a man who saw the world as
multi-cultural and was thwarted in every instance of his attempts to portray
that world in his art. Petrick interviewed child models, now middle-aged, to get
a first-hand account of what it was like to be a Rockwell model and how he
affected their lives. This book is, in many respects, an artistic biography of
Rockwell, and it chronicles his struggles with and despair at the magazine The
Saturday Evening Post, whose conservative editor only allowed blacks in the
publication if they were in subservient positions. Rockwell's own ideology was
quite progressive, and he came to hate the magazine that created a Rockwell
persona so far from the reality of who he was. Petrick concludes her work by
citing African-American artists who were greatly influenced by Rockwell's work,
who saw those hidden in plain sight.
Jane Allen Petrick's book should be required reading in art
history classes. It's that good. It should also be required reading for anyone
interested in United States history and the fight for civil rights and progress
in our nation. I had no idea who Rockwell was before I read this book and
harbored a vague contempt for the man whenever he was mentioned as an American
artist. The great cover-up and whitewash Petrick exposes is much too effective.
What an inspiring man Rockwell was, and how much I would have liked to have
known him. Petrick's work shows him finally in a light Rockwell would have felt
at ease with and even delighted in. Hidden in Plain Sight: The Other People in
Norman Rockwell's America is an amazing piece of scholarship and very highly
recommended.
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