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Rockwell Mania
by Daniel Grant

Land Ho! (Tribute to Norman Rockwell)
Land Ho! (Tribute to Norman Rockwell)
Raymond Sammak
When some famous artists die, they live on in art history books, their artwork on view in museums and in other notable collections. Norman Rockwell, the illustrator who died in 1978 at the age of 84, has been written up in numerous books and even has his own eponymous museum. A retrospective of his career is currently touring the United States.
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Unlike many other artists, however, he became an even larger industry in death than he was in life. Apart from the artist’s own drawings, sketches, watercolors and oil paintings that continue to attract collectors, Rockwell’s images are available on a myriad of items for which enthusiasts spend tens of millions of dollars annually. This merchandise includes notecards, postcards, bookmarks, sweatshirts, coasters, posters, pencils and pencil cases, figurines, plates, rugs, snow globes, tote bags, iron-on transfers, Christmas cards and ornaments, lamps, clocks, jigsaw puzzles, candy bars, trouser suspenders, paper weights, coffee mugs and beer steins, calendars, pillows, playing cards, dolls and architectural miniatures. The gift shop at the Norman Rockwell Museum in the artist’s hometown of Stockbridge, Massachusetts carries 1,200 items, just a fraction of the total.
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Red Canoe, Stockbridge
Red Canoe, Stockbbridge
Wendy Goldberg
From the Fifties
From the Fifties
Nick Gary
Hundreds of companies market the Rockwelliana, and all of them need to receive permission, through a licensing agreement, from one or more of the four main copyright holders of the artist’s works. “Rockwell’s name is used proverbially,” says Thomas Rockwell, one of the artist’s three sons and sole trustee of the family trust. “When you say Norman Rockwell, the small-town image comes to mind.”
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Few other artists in history have had two such distinct and gigantic markets. Running a distant second is Mary Anne Robertson “Grandma” Moses (1860-1961), whose original paintings are highly valued, and whose images are also found on calendars, posters, ceramic plates and greeting cards.
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Vernon
Vernon
Sharon Florin
Dinner Conversation
Dinner Conversation
JoAnn Bishop
There is far less “Grandma” Moses than Norman Rockwell merchandise on the market, a reflection of relative demand and partly a matter of planning, according to her dealer, Jane Kallir of New York City’s Galerie St. Etienne. “Towards the end of her life and after her death, Grandma Moses’ celebrity status waned, and her status as a fine artist increased,” Kallir said. “In this context, we didn’t want the artist to seem totally exploited commercially.”
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