Norman Rockwell. 332 Magazine Covers

Although technically he was an academic painter, he had the eye of a photographer and, as he became a mature artist, he used this eye to give us a picture of America that was familiar - astonishingly so - and at the same time unique. The picture seemed familiar because it was everyone's dream of America; it was unique because only Rockwell managed to bring it to life with such authority. Rockwell held up a friendly mirror to the society he lived in, and Americans have looked into this glass and seen themselves as warm, decent, hard-working citizens of a country bountiful enough to accommodate their boundless optimism.

Rockwell best expressed this vision of America in his justly famous cover illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post, painted between 1916 and 1963. All of his Post covers are reproduced in splendid full color in this oversized volume, with commentaries by Christopher Finch, the noted writer on art and popular culture.

In this latest printing of 332 Magazine Covers, the thumbnail images accompanying Finch's descriptive captions are printed in full color for the convenience of the reader, and the typography has been refreshed.