Displaying items by tag: saying grace

“Rockwell’s greatest sin as an artist is simple: His is an art of unending cliché.”

In that Washington Post criticism of a 2010 exhibition of Norman Rockwell paintings at the Smithsonian, Blake Gopnik joined a long line of prominent critics attacking Rockwell, the American artist and illustrator who depicted life in mid-20th-century America and died in 1978.

“Norman Rockwell was demonized by a generation of critics who not only saw him as an enemy of modern art, but of all art,” said Deborah Solomon, whose biography of Rockwell, “American Mirror,” was published last year. “He was seen as a lowly calendar artist whose work was unrelated to the lofty ambitions of art,” she said, or, as she put it in her book, “a cornball and a square.” The critical dismissal “was obviously a source of great pain throughout his life,” Ms. Solomon, a frequent contributor to The New York Times, added.

Norman Rockwell's The Rookie has sold for $22.5 million at auction Thursday. The 1957 painting of baseball players in a locker room was sold by Christie's auction house — heady heights for a work that first appeared on a magazine that sold for 15 cents.

While the "hammer price" of the Rockwell painting was $20 million, Christie's says the painting's final price is $22,565,000, reflecting a buyer's premium. We've updated this post to reflect the auction house's final calculation.

Today’s auction of American Art at Sotheby’s New York achieved $45,869,625 (est. $33.2/49.7 million)* – among the highest totals for an American Art sale in the last five years.

- Today’s sell-through rate of 80.7% by lot marks the 5th consecutive American Art auction at Sotheby’s with a strong sell-through rate over 80%.

- Ten lots brought prices over $1 million, with more than half of all sold lots achieving prices above their high estimates – including eight of the auction’s top ten works.

- Ten works by Norman Rockwell totaled $20 million, meeting their combined pre-sale high estimate.

- Led by After the Prom, which sold for $9,1,250,000 – the 4th highest price at auction for the artist (est. $8/12 million). The work was last acquired at Sotheby’s New York in 1995 for $880,000.

For decades, the Norman Rockwell painting hung in the principal’s office at Gardner High School, all but unknown to the world beyond.

Now, the 1941 original has burst into the public eye, slated for a Sotheby’s auction that could fetch millions for the Central Massachusetts city.

In the early 1950s, Rockwell gave the painting, part of a popular World War II series for The Saturday Evening Post, to the principal, who hung it in his office. There it would stay until 2001. Realizing its value, school officials had the painting appraised, then stored it away for safekeeping.

Sotheby’s American Art auction, which concluded on December 4 in New York, garnered $83.9 million, far exceeding its high estimate of $62.1 million. The sale was highlighted by a collection of seven paintings by Norman Rockwell from the family of Kenneth J. Stuart Jr. -- the artist’s longtime friend and art editor at the Saturday Evening Post. 

While the entire Stuart collection sold for $59.7 million, the group was led by Saying Grace, which sold for $46 million -- the highest price ever paid for a work sold in an American art auction. The painting was estimated to bring $20 million.

Edward Hopper led Christie's American art sale, which wrapped up on December 5, with his painting East Wind Over Weehawken. The work, which depicts a desolate street corner in Depression-era Weehawken, NJ, sold for $40.5 million -- a record for the artist at auction. The overall sale netted $76.8 million, which is the highest sale total ever for the category at Christie's.  

Sotheby’s announced that its highly anticipated American art auction in New York on December 4, 2013 will include a selection of Norman Rockwell paintings from the family of Kenneth J. Stuart Sr., the artist’s longtime friend and art director at the Saturday Evening Post. The seven works include two of Rockwell’s most celebrated works – Saying Grace (estimate: $15 million to $20 million) and The Gossips (estimate: $6 million to $9 million). The works, which were passed down in Stuart’s family to the present owners, are expected to garner over $24 million.

Rockwell created his first Saturday Evening Post cover in 1916 and over the next several decades, became the publication’s most popular and successful illustrator. The artist’s most productive period coincided with the start of his professional and personal relationship with Stuart, who became the Post’s art editor in 1943. The two worked together for 18 years, collaborating on some of Rockwell’s most popular covers including The Gossips and Saying Grace.

Elizabeth Goldberg, head of Sotheby’s American art department, said, “To offer any of these masterworks would be a great privilege. To present two of Norman Rockwell’s most iconic works in one auction truly is unprecedented.”

Select works from the sale will be on view in Los Angeles, Hong Kong and New York throughout the fall.