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Lot Essay
This work was illustrated in the 1941 Hercules Powder Company calendar.
Perhaps America's best known and most popular artist, Norman Rockwell produced innumerable images of rural America, the most endearing of which are his gently humorous depictions of children. Among the finest of these is Boy and Dog, in which Rockwell paints an outwardly simple scene of a barefoot lad, his trousers full of holes and held up by a single suspender strap, striding though a grassy field on a sunlit, summer day. The boy whistles as he walks, and at his side, his dog looks expectantly upwards while running alongside his master. With his incomparable mastery of technique in the work, Rockwell brilliantly captures the joy of boyhood.
Initially appearing in a 1941 calendar created for the Hercules Powder Company, Boy and Dog compares in its theme of childhood innocence with many other Rockwell masterworks, beginning with his earliest illustrations, and continuing to the end of his career. As noted by Laurie Norton Moffett, "His neighbors were his models, ordinary moments his themes. 'The commonplaces of America are to me the richest subjects in art,' Rockwell wrote in 1936. 'Boys batting flies on vacant lots; little girls playing jacks on the front steps; old men plodding home at twilight, umbrellas in hand -- all of these things arouse feeling in me. Commonplaces never become tiresome. It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative.'"
Perhaps Rockwell's vision of America will in time prove to be our most enduring, recording the small joys and quiet triumphs of a more distant time. "His images convey our shortcomings," writes Laurie Moffett, "as well as our national ideals of freedom, democracy, equality, tolerance, and common decency in ways that anybody could understand. He has become an American institution ... Whether it is the proud strength of Rosie the Riveter (private collection), the democratic principles in The Four Freedoms (The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts), the injustice of bigotry in The Problem We All Live With (The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts), or the hopes and struggles of growing up in Girl at Mirror (The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts), Rockwell's paintings powerfully portray the universal truths, aspirations, and foibles of humanity. His work is part of the fabric of America, and at its best it reflects our most fundamental beliefs about who we are as a people." (M.H. Hennessey, et al, Norman Rockwell, Pictures for the American People, Atlanta, Georgia, 1999, pp. 24, 26)
Perhaps America's best known and most popular artist, Norman Rockwell produced innumerable images of rural America, the most endearing of which are his gently humorous depictions of children. Among the finest of these is Boy and Dog, in which Rockwell paints an outwardly simple scene of a barefoot lad, his trousers full of holes and held up by a single suspender strap, striding though a grassy field on a sunlit, summer day. The boy whistles as he walks, and at his side, his dog looks expectantly upwards while running alongside his master. With his incomparable mastery of technique in the work, Rockwell brilliantly captures the joy of boyhood.
Initially appearing in a 1941 calendar created for the Hercules Powder Company, Boy and Dog compares in its theme of childhood innocence with many other Rockwell masterworks, beginning with his earliest illustrations, and continuing to the end of his career. As noted by Laurie Norton Moffett, "His neighbors were his models, ordinary moments his themes. 'The commonplaces of America are to me the richest subjects in art,' Rockwell wrote in 1936. 'Boys batting flies on vacant lots; little girls playing jacks on the front steps; old men plodding home at twilight, umbrellas in hand -- all of these things arouse feeling in me. Commonplaces never become tiresome. It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative.'"
Perhaps Rockwell's vision of America will in time prove to be our most enduring, recording the small joys and quiet triumphs of a more distant time. "His images convey our shortcomings," writes Laurie Moffett, "as well as our national ideals of freedom, democracy, equality, tolerance, and common decency in ways that anybody could understand. He has become an American institution ... Whether it is the proud strength of Rosie the Riveter (private collection), the democratic principles in The Four Freedoms (The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts), the injustice of bigotry in The Problem We All Live With (The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts), or the hopes and struggles of growing up in Girl at Mirror (The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts), Rockwell's paintings powerfully portray the universal truths, aspirations, and foibles of humanity. His work is part of the fabric of America, and at its best it reflects our most fundamental beliefs about who we are as a people." (M.H. Hennessey, et al, Norman Rockwell, Pictures for the American People, Atlanta, Georgia, 1999, pp. 24, 26)