On August 2, 2001, Norman Rockwell Museum welcomed four of the nation's leading illustrators as they reflected upon Norman Rockwell's influence on the field of illustration and on their own artwork. The discussion inspired intriguing commentary from the panel, which included: Teresa Fasolino, Wendell Minor,
Tim O'Brien, and C.F. Payne.

A date that sticks in my mind personally is November 9, 1978. I was sitting in this diner that looked very much like Rockwell's painting The Runaway. There was an old Bakelite radio up on the shelf, full of dust, and over the radio it was announced that Norman Rockwell has passed. I'll never forget that. I realized at that point that an era had passed. And here I was, with my first one-man show; I realized that the torch had been passed to a new generation..."

—Wendell Minor

What was your first introduction to Norman Rockwell's work?

Minor: My first introduction to art was at Shafer's Drug Store in Aurora, Illinois. After I delivered my papers on a Friday afternoon, I would get a Cherry Coke and go to the newsstand to admire one of these wonderful [magazine] covers. Not knowing how I would ever do it, I knew I wanted to be an artist and Norman Rockwell was my vision of what an artist should be and today [he] still is.

Fasolino: I grew up in Porchester, New York, very near to New Rochelle, where Norman Rockwell lived when his first Saturday Evening Post cover was published in 1916. In my house when I was growing up, I remember there were three art books: one on Leonardo [da Vinci], one on Raphael, and one on Michelangelo. I really only knew the work of one American illustrator, and that was Norman Rockwell.

Payne: I was a fairly typical kid, looking at comic books and Mad magazine, stuff that was imagery. Somewhere down the line, of course, I was introduced to Norman Rockwell. As I got older, the craftsmanship that Rockwell showed in his paintings-the storytelling, the narrative-appealed to me because I'm also a bit of a movie nut. I've always said that two of my biggest influences are Mad magazine and Norman Rockwell. With luck you can see it.

O'Brien (recalling long overdue library books he borrowed as a high school junior): One was The Great Heavyweights by Henry Cooper, the other book was a Norman Rockwell book [Norman Rockwell, Illustrator, by Arthur L. Guptill]. This is about the extent of my career research. After reading, I decided that maybe I was better suited to be an illustrator someday. So I'm ready to return the book. But I haven't yet figured out how to become a heavyweight champion.

Payne (on arguments with fellow fine-art students about Rockwell's work): It just drove me nuts. Six months ago you liked this stuff, now all of the sudden you think it stinks? All of the sudden you're intellectually more superior than I am because you like Jasper Johns and I'm a Neanderthal because I like Norman Rockwell? I finally found out there was this thing called illustration, and I didn't argue with those guys. That's why I ended up going into illustration.

What are your thoughts on Rockwell's art?

Fasolino: Norman Rockwell had such an acute sense of gesture and facial expression that I really don't think any other artist can touch him.

O'Brien: I'm amazed that Rockwell can make a scene so lit and still have you look where he wants you to look. I haven't really figured that out yet.

Fasolino: I always loved the Norman Rockwell painting of the girl contemplating her image.

Payne: Norman Rockwell could paint Jackson Pollock, but could Jackson Pollock paint like Norman Rockwell? The thing that always amazes me about Rockwell... there are so many people that he has influenced... there are so many people who have tried to imitate his work, and the fact of the matter is they all come up short.

Minor: Most of the things that I paint are classical themes: portraits, landscape, still-life, animals in nature... and I think that that's one of the things that I too garnered from those early Post covers-the simplicity of life that is often overlooked.

How has Rockwell influenced the development of your own work?

Minor: I went to Ringling [School of Art and Design], and during the '60s it was considered a cardinal sin to copy photographs. You should only work from life, or not at all or make it up. Well, when I got Susan Meyer's book, Rockwell's People, in 1981, I saw the process with which he worked, and his ability to work with models and react and literally act out scenes. I decided I would start trying that. I have done it for the last few years, and now I am having a ball looking through my town for the right model for the right piece. It's really been a tremendous help.

O'Brien: What I learned from his work is how to cast the role. It's so important in these illustrations. This job was about a young boy who found salvation through basketball. The trick here is to show a powerful young man who is capable of some bad deeds, but show sensitivity also. [The trick is] casting this role, finding the right boy, and also applying the right mood to this painting to make it beautiful, because this is a fairly dreary environment. If you saw the reference to this, you would say "Eee-yew, you want to paint that?"

Fasolino: Eventually, it's as a storyteller that Norman Rockwell would have an impact on my work. Rockwell was a master storyteller in a narrative tradition, and I feel that my own illustration is part of this tradition, which goes back to the Renaissance. They're not just portraits of people, animals or landscapes; they hope to tell a story.

O'Brien: Because Rockwell's footprint is so big and deep and my style is fairly close, I try to stay out of the footprint. It would be easy to be pigeonholed as a Rockwell clone, which in our industry is a scary thing to be pigeonholed as, because you can't beat Rockwell unless you vary it. Chris [Payne] does a beautiful job varying that, taking from lots of different places. I don't do the distortion that Chris does, so I have to be a little more careful.

Payne: Rockwell has played such an important part in my life. There's really only a handful of artists that I can say that about. Another illustrator who played a huge part in my life was Alan Cober, who just taught me so much about trusting your instincts. In life you're dealt a hand of cards: the things that you do well, the things that you believe in, and the things that are true to your heart. And you stay with that.

How have things changed in the illustration field since Rockwell's day?

Payne: The only thing that drives me nuts today is that Time calls you on Wednesday, and the artwork has to be in New York on Friday. So you have to do it in a day.

Minor: Rockwell used to spend sometimes months on a cover painting. Today, people want things faster. Things are reproduced digitally and things have to wrap around a drum scanner. So your art has to be flexible, and it shouldn't be anymore than 22 inches long. So the large paintings that you see upstairs [in the Rockwell Museum] are a luxury, because unless you shoot a transparency, which you have to pay for yourself, painting large is almost an option that we don't choose anymore.

Fasolino: Things are very strange. I don't think art directors have the same relationship they once did with illustration. There are areas, like advertising, where illustration is very underused. I think designers are king these days. If you want to be an editorial illustrator, then you have to turn it around overnight. That's a huge change. [Artists have to] find other ideas, other venues. We have to use more imaginative thinking.

O'Brien: I talk to a lot of students about painting, and a surprising number of students believe that you cannot use oil in illustration. You can't send it, art directors don't want it. Thank God Rockwell didn't believe it. When I deliver a painting in person, and I open it up before an art director, when that waft of oil and turpentine goes across their nostrils...the romance! I mean we're talking to an art director who was probably an art student, and they look at this thing and think "Wow, who does this anymore?"

Any final thoughts on Rockwell or the field of illustration?

Fasolino: I've just been so impressed seeing Rockwell's paintings in person. We all work for print, but he was an artist! I don't think anything can compare to seeing the originals, the amount of effort that has gone into his surfaces, the compositions…

O'Brien: Rockwell is, for many, the on-ramp to art. I'm used to talking to illustration students and Rockwell is just something we all understand. We don't have to talk about Rockwell. He's the blood that we all have shooting through our veins.

Minor: The art form of the illustrator is growing, and I think it's growing because it's an inseparable part of our popular culture. When [the] Rockwell [exhibit] goes to the Guggenheim, I think that's going to change everyone's public perception of what this art is, that is illustration is illustration and fine art is fine art. Try to buy an N.C. Wyeth, try to buy a Winslow Homer, try to buy an Edward Hopper. You can't do it, because the prices are absolutely out of sight. So the value of the original is intrinsically very valuable, and I think in the future it will become even more so. There's always room for excellence, there's always room for creativity, and I believe that come hell or high water, as long as there's ink on paper, we'll be there.

Payne: One of the very, very sweet things about this for me-I [spoke about] all the fighting that I went through in college dealing with Rockwell-is the fact that Rockwell is going to the Guggenheim!