Ferrari F50 Berlinetta Prototipo 1995, Itália

Ferrari F50 Berlinetta Prototipo 1995, Itália
Exterior: Vermelho (Rosso Corsa)
Fotografia

4,698cc DOHC, 48-valve V-12 engine, Bosch Motronic fuel injection and engine management, 513 HP at 7,000 RPM, six-speed manual gearbox in rear transaxle, four-wheel independent suspension with coil springs and unequal-length wishbones, four-wheel hydraulic disc brakes; wheelbase: 2,581 mm
Unveiled by Piero Lardi Ferrari and Sergio Pininfarina at an exclusive preview held before the world-famous Geneva Auto Salon the evening of March 6, 1995 at the Geneva Galleria Museum, Ferrari’s stunning new Ferrari F50 supercar was introduced to the public there by Luca di Montezemolo. The product of “Fifty years of racing, fifty years of winning, fifty years of hard work,” as he stated, the Ferrari F50 remains a stunning achievement on every conceivable level.
Using technology derived from Ferrari’s Formula 1 V-12, the new 4.7-litre engine featured a 65-degree angle between the two cylinder banks and four overhead camshafts with three intake and two exhaust valves per cylinder. Its compression ratio was 11.3:1, a Bosch Motronic module controlled the fuel injection and ignition, while a throttle valve driven by the ECU allowed for two exhaust lengths: one tuned to achieve the greatest torque and another for better top-end performance, reducing exhaust backpressure. A self-diagnostic system even adhered to California’s notoriously strict exhaust emission standards. Cutting-edge materials for the V-12 engine included a crankcase made of high-strength nodular cast iron, while Nikasil-coated cylinder liners and connecting rods were made of titanium. Dry sump oiling was used with three scavenge pumps and one supply pump. All told, maximum output reached 520 HP at 8,500 RPM and peak torque was 347 foot-pounds at 6,500 RPM. The 436-pound engine itself was durable, capable of reaching over 10,000 RPM. A six-speed longitudinal gearbox, complete with limited-slip differential, was fitted behind the engine, between which was mounted the oil tank for the dry sump engine lubrication system – all reminiscent of the layout used in Ferrari’s contemporary Formula 1 cars. Top speed was 325 km/h (202 mph) and the 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) dash required merely 3.7 seconds.
Some commentators described the F50 as a Ferrari F1 machine with a second seat and a sportscar body. The comparison was far from unfounded. The chassis was made entirely of Cytec aerospace carbon fiber and weighed merely 225 pounds. The aircraft-style rubber fuel bladder was contained within this chassis, behind the driver and in front of the engine. For the first time in a Ferrari road car, the engine/gearbox/differential assembly acted as a load-bearing structure. Large brake discs were ventilated and drilled and were fitted with four-piston Brembo brake calipers. The brakes were so good, ABS was deemed unnecessary. Inside, the instrument panel featured a tachometer and speedometer as well as fuel, oil, and water temperatures and oil pressure gauges – all controlled by microcomputer with LCD display. This system also included a statistics bank, which memorized the various dynamic parameters of the car and incorporated a crash record. Fully adjustable, the throttle, brake, and clutch pedals were all drilled for weight reduction. The gated gearshift was traditional Ferrari and, in the interest of weight, even the gear knob and lever were made of lightweight composite materials. Virtually every element benefited from cutting-edge technology.
In typical Ferrari fashion, just 349 cars would be built over two years – one less than the market demanded. The first 10 cars went to Europe, while deliveries to the United States began in July 1995. Each owner received a document signed by Luca di Montezemolo attesting to the authenticity of the car, and all the owners were invited back to Modena after the last F50 was produced, in order to celebrate the evolution of the car.
The F50 offered here, with serial number ending in #99999, is the first prototype car, with use including pre-production development of the final F50 design and assembly-line procedures. It has certainly enjoyed an illustrious career as a featured subject for legions of automotive journalists and the focus of many test sessions. From early 1994, it had performed lap after lap on Ferrari’s Fiorano test track, usually wearing Italian ‘Prova’ (test) plate MO2112 and completing hundreds of kilometres on the roads around Maranello in the capable hands of test drivers Dario Benuzzi, Niki Lauda, Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi. In 1994, #99999 was the glamorous subject for factory posters and glamour photos such as those by noted photographer Rainer Schlegelmilch. It was also the basis for scale models produced by Burago, Maisto, Tamiya, Revell and others, as well as detailed cutaway drawings by Shin Yoshikawa. Its now-iconic image was used for the stock press pictures in Ferrari sales literature and in dozens of books, nearly a hundred magazines and even postage stamps. F50 #99999 also marks the end of an era it as the last Ferrari built with a five-digit chassis number.
In addition to select appearances including the Geneva Auto Salon (March 9-19, 1995), F50 #99999 starred at “Forza Ferrari at Suzuka” in Japan (April 8-9, 1995), where it was accompanied by Mr. Swaters, Mr. and Mrs. Piero Ferrari, Ferrari’s Maurizio Parlato, Enzo Francesconi and Niki Lauda. Back in Europe, it was shown at “Ferrari Days” at Spa, Belgium (May 5-7, 1995), under the aegis of Swaters’ Garage Francorchamps, who at the time also took delivery of the first production F50 (001 of 349: F50-103097). On October 15, 1995, it was exhibited at “Tutti la Ferrari in Pista,” at Mugello, along with F50-101919 (later presented to Sergio Pininfarina) and F50-102474 (presented to Piero Ferrari). This F50 returned to Japan for the Tokyo Motor Show (October 27-November 8, 1995) and then during the remainder of 1995 and into 1997, F50 #99999 accumulated perhaps another thousand kilometres in 5-lap increments around the Fiorano test circuit at the hands of test drivers including such former international racing champions as Phil Hill and Paul Frere, both noted motoring journalists from the 1960s-90s. From late 1995 to late 1997, F50 #99999 also served as the shining star of the Ferrari Galleria display.
After miles of road and track testing by the factory, in late 1997, F50 #99999 was rebuilt by the factory in preparation for its presentation to its first registered owner. On January 30, 1998, F50 #99999 was presented to Jacques Swaters and transported to Garage Francorchamps in Belgium where it joined the Swaters collection. Interestingly, the car’s unique VIN had been promised to Swaters – a close friend of Enzo Ferrari himself, back in the 1980s. In 2000, the F50 was driven to Spa for another “Ferrari Days” event initiated by Mr. Swaters and Garage Francorchamps and, in 2002, F50 #99999 was featured in the Garage Francorchamps 50th Anniversary celebrations and would remain in the Swaters collection until 2006.
In Spring 2007, at 502 miles, #99999 was sold to Ferrari collector David Walters of Burbank, California, who exhibited #99999 at various high-profile West Coast automotive gatherings including the August 2008 Quail Motorsports Gathering in Monterey, California. Subsequent owners include Andrew Herrala of New York in January 2011 and Tony Shooshani of Los Angeles in August 2013, followed by the current owner from Long Island, New York in 2017. Today, F50 #99999 is offered with Ferrari Classiche certification and the all-important “Red Book.” It is complete with original accessories including the hardtop with “anvil” case, books/manuals, fitted factory luggage, a serial-numbered key fob, serial-numbered shop manuals, parts books with microfiche, as well as a large file containing additional documentation, literature and related ephemera. Recently, in 2018, this F50 received service from a Ferrari dealer, including fluids, battery, tires, fuel bladders and a stainless-steel Tubi muffler, with the factory muffler included in the sale of the vehicle.
Regarded as the most important of all road-going F50s, with unparalleled provenance and history documented by marque expert Marcel Massini, it remains superb in all respects, ready for immediate enjoyment and appreciation.

Produtos Curiosos / Inusitados: "Vela Cheiro da Sua Vagina”, Marca Goop de Gwyneth Paltrow, Estados Unidos

Produtos Curiosos / Inusitados: "Vela Cheiro da Sua Vagina”, Marca Goop de Gwyneth Paltrow, Estados Unidos
Produto

Além de ser atriz, Gwyneth Paltrow gerencia a empresa de sua marca pessoal, a Goop. Entre itens corriqueiros como blusa, calça e shampoo, um produto chamou atenção. E não era para menos. Trata-se de uma vela aromática que promete levar ao ambiente o "cheiro da sua vagina".

O lançamento, que faz parte de um projeto de bem-estar com tratamentos, digamos, alternativos, já esgotou no site. O preço é de 75 dólares, o que corresponde a aproximadamente 300 reais.

De acordo com a descrição do site, o título da criação de Gwyneth com o perfumista Dougles Little começou com uma brincadeira. A composição do aroma mistura gerânio, bergamota cítrica, absolutos de cedro, sementes de rosa e ambreta.

Lada, Pioneira da Abertura das Importações, Passa de "Mico" a "Colecionável" no Brasil, Artigo

Lada, Pioneira da Abertura das Importações, Passa de "Mico" a "Colecionável" no Brasil, Artigo
Artigo

A reabertura das importações em 1990 foi marcada pela trajetória de uma das marcas mais famosas da Rússia no Brasil. A Lada foi a primeira empresa a trazer carros para cá e logo fez sucesso com modelos que seduziram clientes muito mais pela relação custo-benefício do que por atributos como o design.

A meta da Lada era ousada: vender cerca de 50 mil carros por ano, o que representava 6,5% do mercado nacional. Logo no primeiro ano, 15 mil veículos foram faturados e a rede de concessionárias chegou a 126 revendas.

"Eram carros com motor 1.6, espaçosos e que custavam US$ 5 mil, enquanto um Uno era vendido por US$ 6.500. A marca fez muito sucesso, especialmente entre os taxistas, que viram no Laika um carro espaçoso e barato para trabalhar", relembra o jornalista Flavio Gomes, um dos maiores entusiastas da marca russa no Brasil.

Porém, problemas de qualidade nos carros (que vinham da Rússia sem qualquer adaptação para as altas temperaturas do nosso país) fizeram as vendas desabarem com a mesma rapidez. A queda foi de 66% em 1991 e os números só pioraram até a marca sair do Brasil em 1995.

Desde então, pouca gente se aventura a comprar um Lada no mercado de usados. A única exceção é o Niva, o robusto jipe que tem uma legião fiel de fãs. Outros modelos, como o Samara (um dos primeiros modelos a vir para o país, ao lado do Niva), são quase impossíveis de serem encontrados em estado decente de conservação.

Mesmo assim, a marca ganhou espaço no universo do antigomobilismo nos últimos anos. Alguns exemplares em estado impecável de conservação já são vendidos por valores muito acima do usual, especialmente por lojistas conhecidos por inflacionar preços.

Um dos motivos para a inflação acontece porque os carros da Lada já podem receber placa preta neste ano. Uma perua Laika SW azul foi o primeiro Lada a receber o sonhado atestado de originalidade.

Mas não é só no mercado de carros antigos que a Lada está lentamente reconquistando espaço. Os modelos da marca estão sendo procurados por pessoas que desejam um carro mais barato com tração traseira, inclusive fãs de preparação.

"Até pouco tempo atrás o Laika era muito desvalorizado, mas os preços subiram muito, especialmente pelo fato de ser um carro com tração traseira. Conheço alguns carros que foram preparados, sendo um deles com 320 cv na roda e o outro preparado para provas de track day", afirma Paulo Gastaldo, fundador do Lada Clube SP.

O clube nasceu de forma tímida nas redes sociais, mas cresceu rapidamente e hoje realiza até encontros mensais na Praça Charles Miller, em São Paulo (SP).

"Nosso grupo tem por volta de 700 pessoas no Facebook e 300 carros. Já fizemos alguns passeios, como viagens para Pedra Grande e Paranapiacaba, e uma vez por mês fazemos um churrasco comunitário, normalmente às terças ou quartas-feiras", declarou.

O engenheiro de produção conheceu a marca quando era criança, já que seu pai foi dono de um Laika e sua mãe dirigia um Samara.

"Lembrei da Lada quando estava procurando um carro com tração 4x4. Pesquisei um (Jeep) Cherokee, mas me assustei com o custo de manutenção, e aí fui atrás de um Niva porque queria um carro pequeno e com câmbio manual".

Depois de comprar algumas peças para seu Niva pela internet, Paulo resolveu abrir um negócio para vender peças de reposição para carros da marca. Faltava, porém, uma maneira de trazê-las de forma mais rápida, e foi aí que Paulo viveu uma situação hilária que mudou sua vida.

"Resolvi ir até o Consulado da Rússia em São Paulo e fui atendido muito bem até a hora em que descobriram o motivo da visita. Fui expulso ouvindo palavrões de todos os tipos em russo (risos). Entrei em comunidades de brasileiros na Rússia e encontrei um rapaz que morava em Moscou e conhecia um amigo em Togliatti (cidade-sede da Lada). E esse cara conhecia um amigo que trabalha na linha de montagem da Lada", revelou.

As conversas evoluíram e rapidamente a loja online de Paulo cresceu. "Consegui o contato de algumas fornecedoras e hoje sou o representante oficial de um deles aqui no Brasil".

Agora, Paulo está envolvido em um projeto ainda mais ambicioso. Se tudo der certo, ele será o primeiro e único dono de um Niva 0km no Brasil.

"Estou trabalhando para importar um Niva da Rússia e pretendo trazê-lo pronto de lá. O processo (de importação) é relativamente fácil, mas a conversão direta de valores faz com que ele passe dos R$ 45 mil que custa lá para R$ 125 mil. Poderia até trazê-lo de um dos países em que a Lada vende carros na América do Sul (Peru, Chile ou Bolívia), mas aí precisaria pagar dois impostos de importação, uma vez que o chassi do Niva é de origem russa".

Nota do blog: O carro da foto é um Lada Samara.

Lavradores no Campo / Campo com Lavrador (Laboureur Dans un Champ) - Vincent van Gogh

Lavradores no Campo / Campo com Lavrador (Laboureur Dans un Champ) -  Vincent van Gogh
Coleção privada
OST - 50x64 - 1889

On most mornings for an entire year, between 9 May 1889 and 16 May 1890, as Vincent van Gogh rose from his bed and gazed through the single window in his room, the world outside appeared to him much like it does in this painting. A wheat field enclosed within a low stone wall, a few poplars, and an old farm house loomed into view among the long shadows in the early morning half-light. Vincent’s window faced due east; each morning at the appointed moment the spectacle of the ascending, glowing disc of the sun would exhilarate and inspire him. Having begun this painting of a ploughman tilling the soil of this very plot of land during the final days of August 1889, the artist completed it on 2 September. This was a momentous development for Vincent; he had not handled his brushes for a month and a half, not since mid-July. Dr. Théophile Peyron and the attendants at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy had taken care to lock Vincent out of his studio, as they awaited his return to good health and a stable, less frenzied state of mind.
Six weeks previously, a devastating epileptic episode, an all-consuming firestorm, had wreaked havoc on Vincent’s mind and body. An “attack”, as the artist called it, of this magnitude and ferocity had last occurred in Arles on 23 December 1888, following a violent argument with Paul Gauguin in the small “Yellow House” they had shared for the previous two months. Vincent was already deeply upset at having received word from his brother Theo that he planned to marry; Vincent worried that this development would end their close relationship, on which he was emotionally and financially dependent. Fearing for his safety, Gauguin fled to spend the night in a hotel. Believing that his friend was departing for good—a second threat of abandonment—Vincent plunged into a delirium of hallucinations and self-recrimination. He pulled out a razor and severed the larger part of his upper left ear, wrapped it, and left it as a gift for Gabrielle, a young woman who worked as maid in the local brothel. Found at home the next day bleeding and unconsciousness, Vincent spent the next two weeks in the Arles hospital.
Local authorities again had Vincent placed under hospital care and supervision when a month later he displayed symptoms of another attack. His neighbors meanwhile successfully petitioned the mayor not to allow him back among them—it became clear that Vincent could not live anywhere on his own. Reverend Frédéric Salles, pastor of the Reformed Protestant Church in Arles, one of Vincent’s few friends in the town, suggested that he voluntarily enter the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy. Theo agreed with this idea, and approved the additional cost of placing Vincent in a small private institution instead of a larger, cheaper public facility in which the care accorded his brother might not be as attentive or reliable.
Although Saint-Rémy lies only fifteen miles to the northeast of Arles, the winding railway trip through the Alpilles, including passage through the ominously named Hell Gate, took two hours. Reverend Salles accompanied the artist, and was present when Vincent introduced himself to Dr. Peyron at St. Paul’s Hospital. “[Vincent] thanked me profusely,” Salles wrote to Theo on 10 May 1889, “and seemed somewhat moved at the thought of the completely new life he was going to lead at that establishment. Let us hope that his stay will be truly beneficial for him and that soon he will be regarded as capable of resuming his complete freedom of movement” (quoted in J. Hulsker, "Vincent's Stay in the Hospitals at Arles and St.-Rémy," Cahier Vincent 1, 1971, pp. 35-36).
“I wanted to tell you that I think I’ve done well to come here,” Vincent reassured Theo on 9 May 1889. “In seeing the reality of the lives of the diverse mad or cracked people in this menagerie, I’m losing the vague dread, the fear of the thing. And little by little I can come to consider madness as being an illness like any other. Then the change of surroundings is doing me good, I imagine” (Letters, no. 772).
During the first month of his stay at St. Paul’s Hospital, Vincent was kept under close observation. He was restricted to the rooms and inner grounds of the institution, in which Dr. Peyron and his staff were treating only about thirty patients in all. “I assure you that I’m very well here,” Vincent wrote to Theo on or around 23 May. “I haven’t yet gone outside. However, the landscape of Saint-Rémy is very beautiful, and little by little I’m probably going to make trips into it. But staying here as I am, the doctor has naturally been in a better position to see what was wrong, and will, I dare hope, be more reassured that he can let me paint...
“Through the iron-barred window I can make out a square of wheat in an enclosure, perspective in the manner of Van Goyen, above which in the morning I see the sun rise in its glory. With this—as there are more than 30 empty rooms—I have another room in which to work...
“Speaking of my condition, I’m still so grateful for yet another thing. I observe in others that, like me, they too have heard sounds and strange voices during their crises, that things also appeared to change before their eyes. And that softens the horror that I retained at first of the crisis I had, and which when it comes to you unexpectedly, cannot but frighten you beyond measure. Once one knows that it’s part of the illness one takes it like other things. Had I not seen other mad people at close hand I wouldn’t have been able to rid myself of thinking about it all the time” (Letters, no. 776).
The former monastery configuration of the hospital buildings enclosed a large garden, to which Vincent was allowed access. Walking its paths gave him much pleasure and induced some welcome peace of mind. The profusion of flowers—oleanders, irises, and lilacs—amid unkempt and overgrown foliage soon became the simple but ample inspiration for the first paintings and drawings that the artist created in Saint-Rémy. Working, Vincent believed, would be the key to his recovery. At the same time, he remained perpetually in fear of the next attack, the possibility of which—he understood and inwardly sensed—would become more likely, and spaced more closely together, after each event. Under the watchful eye and guidance of Dr. Peyron, however, and sheltered within the cloister-like environment of the asylum, Vincent grew hopeful there would be less danger of a relapse, and he took some comfort in knowing that should an attack recur, he would quickly receive proper professional attention and care.
While the other patients typically spent their days in idleness, Vincent began writing and working the very next day after his arrival. He penned his first letter from Saint-Rémy in two sections, the first to Theo and the second to his sister-in-law Jo, dated 9 May, which he posted around the middle of month. “I have two [paintings] on the go—violet irises [Faille, no. 608; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles] and a lilac bush [no. 579; The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg].” Vincent described to Jo how the other patients “all come to see when I’m working in the garden, and I can assure you they are more discreet and more polite to leave me in peace than, for example, the good citizens of Arles. It’s possible that I’ll stay here for quite a long time—never have I been so tranquil as here...to be able to paint a little at last. Very near here are some little grey or blue mountains, with very, very green wheat fields at their foot, and pines” (Letters, no. 772).
“I’ve been here almost a whole month, not one single time have I had the slightest desire to be elsewhere; just the will to work is becoming a tiny bit firmer,” Vincent wrote Theo on 31 May 1889. “What a beautiful land and what beautiful blue and what a sun! And yet I’ve only seen the garden and what I can make out through the window” (Letters, no. 777). Around the time Vincent wrote this letter, he completed his first painting of the wheat field—The Field Enclosure (Faille, no. 720; Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo).
Each of the successive canvases that Vincent painted of the field enclosure motif share the same basic elements: the length of the wall traversing the upper edge of the landscape (in some pictures meeting at an obtuse angle a wall that rises on the left side), farm buildings beyond the enclosure, some species of tree as vertical accents (poplars, cypresses, or olive trees), and the distant hills. There are in total thirteen paintings of this kind, seven of which incorporate the rising sun, and one a full moon. A related group, but without the wall and showing a lower horizon line, are the variants and repetitions of a nearby wheat field with a cypress.
Unlike his treatment of the olive groves, comprising sixteen paintings, or the mountainous landscapes, Vincent never looked upon the field enclosures as a series, even if they represent variations on a theme. He depicted the field enclosure motif under different conditions, such as the time of day or weather, and, more significantly, their place within the planting and harvest cycle, for the duration of a single year, from one spring to the next. The reason, perhaps, that Vincent did not treat this subject in a serial manner is that this site was always there in front of him, day after day; he could turn to it whenever the idea of a new variant might suddenly occur to him, or when he was restricted to the hospital grounds. The olive grove canvases, by contrast, required that he work outdoors—having been given permission to visit the site (with an attendant present)—and there make good use of the time he planned to devote to the project at hand.
On 18 June 1889, Vincent painted The Starry Night (Faille, no. 612; The Museum of Modern Art, New York). He mentioned this picture in the letter he wrote Theo on that day: “At last I have a landscape with olive trees, and also a new study of a starry sky.” Earlier in this letter he was optimistic about the state of his health and mind: “As for me, it’s going well—you’ll understand that after almost half a year now of absolute sobriety in eating, drinking, smoking, with two two-hour baths a week recently, this must clearly calm one down a great deal. So it’s going very well, and as regards work, it occupies and distracts me—which I need very much—far from wearing me out” (Letters, no. 782). The astonishing, electrifying painting that he had just completed, however, presaged the crisis to come.
Dr. Félix Rey, a young surgeon who looked after Vincent while he was hospitalized in Arles following the ear-cutting incident of December 1888, astutely suspected that his patient was suffering from epilepsy, a diagnosis with which Dr. Peyron subsequently concurred. The condition was then known to be hereditary, and Dr. Peyron learned that relatives on both sides of the artist’s family had experienced seizures and other debilitating symptoms of mental disorders. These “latent epileptic fits resembled fireworks of electrical impulses in the brain,” Steven Naifeh and Gregory W. Smith have explained. “The brain could weather these storms, researchers discovered, but it could not fully recover from them. Each attack lowered the threshold for the next attack and permanently altered the functions that had been shaken...[leading to] a pattern of behavior—a syndrome—associated with what came to be known as ‘temporal lobe epilepsy.’” The two authors view the famous Starry Night—“Vincent’s euphoric image of a swirling, unhinged cosmos”—as the artist’s visualization of the intense reaction he had experienced during a seizure brought on by these “bolts of neuronal lightning,” an event which “signaled that his defenses had been breached” (Van Gogh: The Life, New York, 2011, pp. 762 and 763).
The recurrent attack that Vincent had been fearing indeed took place, probably on 16 July 1889. He had recently returned from an escorted visit to Arles, where he collected some of the paintings he had left behind. Neither the kindly Dr. Rey nor Reverend Salles, however, both of whom Vincent was anxious to see, were there to meet him. Memories of events six months before began to trouble and confuse Vincent. On the 16th he was painting outdoors— away from the asylum grounds, with an attendant present—the cavernous entry to one of the many quarries, worked from Roman times, in the foothills of the Alpilles. He recalled his relapse in a letter to Theo dated 22 August. “This new crisis, my dear brother, came upon me in the fields, and when I was in the middle of painting on a windy day. I’ll send you the canvas, which I nevertheless finished” (Letters, no. 797; Faille, no. 744; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam).
The swirling foliage in this painting surrounds and appears to strangle the quarry opening, a telling expression of the uncontrollable forces that had again begun to ravage Vincent’s mind. On his return to St. Paul’s Hospital, he is reported to have drunk kerosene and eaten some of his paints, squeezed from the tubes. Vincent remembered trying to swallow dirt; he experienced pain in his throat for weeks afterward. Dr. Peyron had no choice but to keep Vincent away from his work until he seemed sufficiently recovered.
“For many days I’ve been absolutely distraught,” Vincent wrote Theo, “as in Arles, just as much if not worse, and it’s to be presumed that these crises will recur in the future, it is ABOMINABLE. I haven’t been able to eat for 4 days, as my throat is swollen... Dr. Peyron is really kind to me and really patient. You can imagine that I’m very deeply distressed that the attacks have recurred when I was already beginning to hope that it wouldn’t recur. You’ll perhaps do well to write a line to Dr. Peyron to say that working on my paintings is quite necessary to me for my recovery. For these days, without anything to do and without being able to go into the room he had allocated me for doing my painting, are almost intolerable to me” (ibid.).
Dr. Peyron allowed Vincent to return to his studio at the end of August. He quickly resumed painting. The first canvas he likely completed is the present Laboureur dans un champ. The artist referred to this painting in his letter to Theo dated on or around 2 September: “Yesterday I started working again a little—a thing I see from my window—a field of yellow stubble which is being ploughed, the opposition of the purplish ploughed earth with the strips of yellow stubble, background of hills. Work distracts me infinitely better than anything else, and if I could once again really throw myself into it with all my energy that might possibly be the best remedy” (Letters, no. 798).
The image of the horse and ploughman is repeated in only one other Saint-Rémy painting, a related version but with variant motifs, which Vincent painted later in September (Faille, no. 706; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). The best known of the St. Paul’s Hospital wheat field pictures contains the figure of a reaper (Faille, no. 618; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam). Following the present ploughman canvas, Vincent painted a smaller version of the reaper in the field during 5-6 September (Faille, no. 619; Museum Folkwang, Essen), which he discussed in a concurrent letter to Theo. “I’m struggling with a canvas begun a few days before my indisposition. A reaper, the study is all yellow, terribly thickly impastoed, but the subject was beautiful and simple. I then saw in this reaper—a vague figure struggling like a devil in the full heat of the day to reach the end of his toil—I then saw the image of death in it, in the sense that humanity would be the wheat being reaped. So if you like, it’s the opposite of that Sower I tried before. But in this death is nothing sad, it takes place in broad daylight with a sun that floods everything with a light of fine gold. Good, here I am again, however I’m not letting go, and I’m trying again on a new canvas. Ah, I could almost believe that I have a new period of clarity ahead of me” (Letters, no. 800).
To the opposition of the Sower and Reaper, Vincent added a third man, the Ploughman. Indeed, he might identify himself with any one of these three peasant laborers at different times. In the letter quoted immediately above, the artist further wrote: “My dear brother—I’m still writing to you between bouts of work—I’m ploughing on like a man possessed, more than ever I have a pent-up fury for work, and I think that this will contribute to curing me” (ibid.). Following the enforced hiatus of the previous six weeks, Vincent found himself, at this critical stage in the evolution of his work, acting the role of the ploughman—the forerunner—who turns over the upper layer of soil, bringing fresh nutrients to the surface, preparing the ground for the sower of seeds.
Immediately after completing Laboureur dans un champ, Vincent embarked on a series of portraits—two depicting himself, and two versions of the head attendant Trabuc (Faille, nos. 626, 627, and 629; the original portrait of Trabuc, given to the sitter, is lost). He painted himself again later in September, having shaved his beard, with the intent of giving the picture to his mother for her seventieth birthday (Faille, no. 525; sold, Christie’s New York, 19 November 1998, lot 325). Vincent hoped to impress upon both Dr. Peyron and Theo that he had recovered from his ordeal. For the while, however, he remained indoors, working in his studio, taking stock of his inner resources.
“I’m struggling with all my energy to master my work, telling myself that if I win this it will be the best lightning conductor for the illness. I take great care of myself by carefully shutting myself away; it’s selfish if you like, not to become accustomed to my companions in misfortune here instead, and to go to see them, but anyway I feel none the worse for it, for my work is progressing and we have need of that, for it’s more than necessary that I do better than before, which wasn’t sufficient... I must do better than before. (ibid.) 

Nota do blog: Foi vendida em 2017 em leilão da Christie's por US$ 81,312,500.

O Connoisseur / O Expert / O Especialista (The Connoisseur ) - Norman Rockwell

O Connoisseur / O Expert / O Especialista (The Connoisseur ) - Norman Rockwell
Coleção privada
OST - 96x80 - 1961

In 1961, Rockwell's studio was temporarily transformed into an abstract expressionist's workplace as he painted The Connoisseur, a painting about the relationship between conventional and modern art. Always fascinated by modern and abstract art, Rockwell designed a cover in which he could acknowledge his appreciation of the genre. By placing his back to us, he leaves the interpretation of the museum visitor's reaction to the viewer. If we can assume that he is a surrogate for Rockwell, we may also assume that the gentleman is smiling approvingly.
Rockwell constructed his painting in a manner similar to the work of artist Jackson Pollock. Journals in his library would have provided him with information about Pollock's process. Rather than paint the connoisseur and then surround him with the abstract image, Rockwell first produced the abstract as a separate and complete image. He was then able to position a cutout of his painting of the man over his abstract in order to test the final effect. Later, he combined the images for his final painting.
Rockwell submitted a section of the sample painting to an exhibition at the Cooperstown Art Association in New York, signing the canvas with an Italian signature. It took first prize for painting. Another section of the abstract canvas, signed "Percival," won Honorable Mention at a Berkshire Museum exhibition.
The Connoisseur, Norman Rockwell, 1961. Oil on canvas, 37¾" x 31½". Cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, January 13, 1962. Private collection.

The January 13, 1962 cover of The Saturday Evening Post features an older man eying a painting that looks like Jackson Pollock at his most…drippy. The painter? Norman Rockwell.

Called The Connoisseur, the painting is a mix of art criticism (this is what we’re forced to look at now!) and bravado (but I can do it too!). It mixes Jackson Pollock’s trademark drip painting with Rockwell’s trademark illustrations. Pollock, of course, famously painted with the canvas on the floor.

According to the Norman Rockwell Museum, Rockwell rearranged his entire studio in 1961. He painted the abstract image first, on the floor like Pollock, and then combined the man and Pollock in his final painting.

While we can’t be sure if Rockwell’s Pollock was parody or homage, we do have a hint. He submitted a section of the sample painting to an art exhibition and signed it with a fake Italian signature. He won the contest and earned a similar honorable mention by submitting as Percival at the Berkshire Museum. It sounds more like Banksy than Rockwell, and it shows the satiric side of the master of illustration.

Norman Rockwell Visita a Redação de Um Jornal do Interior, Paris, Missouri, Estados Unidos (Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor) - Norman Rockwell

Norman Rockwell Visita a Redação de Um Jornal do Interior, Paris, Missouri, Estados Unidos (Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor) - Norman Rockwell
Paris, Missouri, Estados Unidos
Coleção privada
OST - 83x160 - 1946

Norman Rockwell painted Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor for the May 25th, 1946 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. By 1946, not only had Rockwell’s myriad covers of The Post captured the imagination of the nation, but the artist was becoming a celebrity in his own right. Perhaps just as importantly, Rockwell’s work adopted a new sense of earnestness in order to more accurately reflect the realities that many faced in post-War America. While Rockwell’s classic sense of idealism remained intact, his imaginative images confronting issues of the present allowed the public to identify with his interpretation of life in America. Christopher Finch writes, “The period from the mid-forties until the late-fifties was perhaps Rockwell’s time of greatest achievement.” (Norman Rockwell’s America, New York, 1975, p. 31) Conceived during this important era of his storied career, Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor is a nostalgic tableau of a small country town and its local newspaper, which captures the spirit of America adapting to life after World War II.
American illustration holds a special place within the context of American art. Before television entered the American home, newspapers and magazines were the primary news sources for the nation. They were also the barometer of public opinion, and naturally, the artists who illustrated these periodicals had a great deal of influence on the perception of their nation. Norman Rockwell did more than simply fulfill his commissions; rather, he understood his advantageous position and put his best efforts into his work. He stated, "No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations. He's got to put all of his talent, all of his feeling into them. If illustration is not considered art, then that is something that we have brought upon ourselves by not considering ourselves artists. I believe that we should say, 'I am not just an illustrator, I am an artist.'"(as quoted in J. Goffman, The Great American Illustrators, New York, 1993, p. 122)
As artists often do, Rockwell drew inspiration for his illustrations from his own life and experiences. While he largely retained an unsentimental view of his childhood, he affectionately recalled his family’s summer trips to the Adirondack Mountains, which provided a welcome escape from life in New York City: “In the city we kids delighted to go up on the roof of our apartment house and spit down on the passers-by in the streets below. But we never did things like that in the country. The clean air, the green fields, the thousand and one things to do…got somehow into us and changed our personalities as much as the sun changed the color of our skins.” (N. Rockwell, Norman Rockwell: My Adventures As an Illustrator, New York, 1988, p. 34) In these rural settings, Rockwell discovered an idealized form of life that suited his disposition and held his fascination for years to come. Everyday scenes and people, first appreciated by the artist at a young age, manifested themselves in his most iconic works and allowed his paintings to become both universal and relatable.
While Rockwell’s characteristic view of American life had its basis in his childhood, in 1939, he sought new surroundings that would inspire further development in his work, having grown restless in New Rochelle, New York. The small town of Arlington, Vermont, with its distinct New England feel appealed to Rockwell, his wife Mary and their three sons, and his arrival precipitated an improvement in his creativity and motivation. Shortly thereafter, he also began actively travelling the country for inspiration. Between 1943 and 1948, he toured as far south as Georgia and as far west as Missouri to capture the lives of everyday Americans in an eight part pictorial series for The Post. Through these eight images the readers of The Post learned what it was like to spend a night on a troop train with paratroopers (A Night on a Troop Train, 1943, unlocated); wait to see the President of the United States (So You Want to See the President, 1943, Office of the White House, Washington, D.C.); appeal to a ration board (Norman Rockwell Visits a Ration Board, 1944, Private Collection); register to vote at a polling station (Norman Rockwell Paints America at the Polls (Election Day), 1944, Cedar Rapids Art Museum, Cedar Rapids, Iowa); observe the daily operation of a small town newspaper (the present work); watch a lesson in a rural classroom (Norman Rockwell Visits a Country School, 1946, Private Collection); visit a family doctor in a Vermont town (Norman Rockwell Visits a Family Doctor, 1947, Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts) and travel with a county agricultural agent as he performs his duties (Norman Rockwell Visits a County Agent, 1948, Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska). Through wars, depression, and civil strife, Rockwell portrayed subjects inspired by ordinary, everyday life and this series was a perfect representation of his contribution.
In regards to this painting and the others from the series, Rockwell described, “During the 1940’s I did a series of pictorial reports for the Post, variously entitled ‘Norman Rockwell Visits a Country School,’ ‘Norman Rockwell Visits his Family Doctor,’ and so on. Each report consisted of a full page spread, and two pages of black and white sketches…I usually spent two days at the scene of the report. During the first day I tried to get the feel of the place and rough out in my mind the story I wanted to tell. The second day I made sketches, decided on the subject and setting of the painting, and had photographs taken. Back in my studio I did the painting and made the finished sketches. I enjoyed doing these reports. They were a pleasant and stimulating change from my regular work…and gave me a chance to travel about the county and meet a lot of people.” (as quoted in R. Schick, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, New York, 2009, p. 51)
In Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor, Rockwell captures the office and daily operation of the Monroe County Appeal, a local newspaper founded in 1867 and based in the small town of Paris, Missouri. The focal point of the picture, seated at the central typewriter and set before the office window, is longtime editor of the Appeal, Jack Blanton. The Post captioned the painting: “Blanton is shown batting out a last-minute editorial. That picture above his desk is one of his father, who founded the Appeal. The gold-star service flag hangs beneath the picture of a grandson of Blanton’s, who would have succeeded him as editor if he hadn’t lost his life in the Army Air Force. Peering over Blanton’s shoulder is the Appeal’s printer, Paul Nipps, whose experienced eye is gauging the number of printed lines the editorial will take up.” (The Saturday Evening Post, New York, 1946, p. 25). At the left side of the painting, a young boy, aware of the looming press deadline, races through the office under the watchful eye of a young female reporter. At the right side of the image, two local residents are purchasing a subscription to the Appeal, while a seated customer with legs extended intently reads the paper, reporting the untimely passing of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Ron Schick notes, “The lead story ‘End Comes to President’ and photographs of FDR and his successor, Harry S. Truman, are visible on the front page.” (Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, p. 51) Meanwhile, Rockwell himself strides through the door with a portfolio wedged under his arm and a trademark pipe jutting from his mouth. Painted with an acute attention to detail, every element of the painting was carefully considered and rendered with a high degree of clarity.
The extraordinary detail in every vignette of Rockwell’s best works from the 1940s, such as Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor, is a result of a profound shift in his working methods around the time of the artist’s move to Arlington. In New Rochelle, Rockwell relied upon professional models, enlisting them for hours until he achieved the desired effect in his paintings. Then, around 1937, Rockwell began to incorporate photography into his creative process. This method meant he could stage elaborate tableaus as subjects and capture the various expressions of his sitters in an instant. Rarely satisfied with a single photograph, the finished illustration was often a composite of many. Indeed, nearly one hundred preparatory photographs were taken for the present work. David Kamp writes of this exhaustive creative system, “First came brainstorming and a rough pencil sketch, then the casting of the models and the hiring of costumes and props, then the process of coaxing the right poses out of the models, then the snapping of the photo, then the composition of a fully detailed charcoal sketch, then a painted color sketch that was the exact size of the picture as it would be reproduced, and then, and only then, the final painting.” ("Norman Rockwell's American Dream," Vanity Fair, November 2009, p. 5) This new approach, coupled with towns around the country full of fresh faces willing to pose for the celebrity artist, meant a flurry of artistic inspiration. "While Rockwell found the perfect settings for works such as Homecoming Marine and Shuffleton's Barbershop close to home, he was willing to travel any distance for his location photography. He went to New Mexico to photograph a train station for Breaking Home Times, the White House for So You Want to See the President!, the offices of a Missouri Newspaper for Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor, and New York City to shoot a Times Square restaurant intended for Saying Grace. In so doing, Rockwell gained more than photographs of a background that met his demand for genuineness." (Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, p. 98)
Covering a sweeping range of topics, including the difficult subject of war, Rockwell helped forge a national sense of identity through his art. Finch writes, “World War II played a very strange role in Rockwell’s career. Rockwell is far from being a warlike person; he is, on the contrary a gentleman in the literal sense of the word. Yet the war brought out the best in him and turned him toward the naturalistic portrait of home-town America which he put to good use in the decades that followed. His immediate contribution to the war effort on the home front was quite considerable. What is most important about his period, in relation to his career as an illustrator, is the fact that he was given an opportunity to prove to himself and to others that he was capable of dealing with serious subjects without abandoning the human touch which had always been his trademark.” (Norman Rockwell’s America, p. 200)
Norman Rockwell's portraits of America are both a faithful historical record of, and a tender tribute to, American popular culture. "His subject was average America. He painted it with such benevolent affection for so many years that a truly remarkable history of our century has been compiled. Millions of people have been moved by his picture stories about pride in country, history, and heritage, about reverence, loyalty, and compassion. The virtues that he admires have been very popular, and because he illustrates them using familiar people in familiar settings with wonderful accuracy, he described the American Dream." (T.S. Buechner, Norman Rockwell: A Sixty Year Retrospective, New York, 1972, p. 13) The scope of Rockwell’s appeal continues to grow as new generations live through the same quintessentially American types of experiences that he so faithfully depicted in his art.

O Novato, Vestiário do Boston Red Sox, Boston, Estados Unidos (The Rookie, Red Sox Locker Room) - Norman Rockwell

O Novato, Vestiário do Boston Red Sox, Boston, Estados Unidos (The Rookie, Red Sox Locker Room) - Norman Rockwell
Boston - Estados Unidos
Coleção privada
OST - 104x99 - 1957

Painted in 1957 as the March 2nd cover for The Saturday Evening Post, Norman Rockwell's The Rookie (Red Sox Locker Room) is an iconic image by an artist celebrated for shaping the culture of a nation with his vision of America. As America's preeminent illustrator, Rockwell was one of the greatest mass communicators of the century. Painting a sweeping range of topics during a century of extensive technological and social change, he helped forge a sense of national identity through his art, producing more than 800 magazine covers. In doing so, Rockwell became as ubiquitous to the American public as the images he created. The Rookie (Red Sox Locker Room), which depicts America's greatest pastime, painted in a patriotic palette of predominately red, white and blue, is as quintessentially Rockwell and singularly American as the very best of his work.
The Boston Red Sox are one of America's oldest and most beloved teams in Major League Baseball. Founded in 1901 as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, Boston was a dominant team in these early years. Between their inception and 1918 they won five World Series Titles. What would follow was an 86 year losing streak. Despite their lack of titles in these intervening years, however, they remained one of the most storied and popular franchises in the industry. This was due, in large part, to their star player of 19 years, Ted Williams. Rockwell, having moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1953, would have been well indoctrinated into the cult following and phenomenon that surrounded "the greatest hitter who ever lived."
In 1939, the Red Sox contracted outfielder Ted Williams from the minor league San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League. Williams transformed the team and had such a tremendous impact during his 19 year reign as to have the team nicknamed the 'Ted Sox.' Williams hit for both maximum power and high average, and his batting average of .406 during the 1941 season still stands today. Despite the team's failure to recapture a World Series win, Williams generated energy and excitement for the franchise. In a new biography on Williams, The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams, biographer Ben Bradlee, Jr. writes, "I was struck by the way the atmosphere at Fenway Park changed each time he came to bat. There would be an anticipatory murmur from the crowd when Ted stepped into the box. He'd knock some real or imagined dirt from his spikes, dig in, wiggle his hips, grind his hands on the handle of the bat, and hold it tight against his body, ready to face the pitcher. People never considered leaving their seats when Williams was hitting. His at bats were events, and he himself was the main event in Boston sports from 1939 to 1960." (The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams, New York, 2013, p. 3) Williams was equally well-known for his role off the field, which contributed to his celebrity status. Williams served twice in the United States Marine Corps as a pilot and saw active duty in both World War II and the Korean War, missing at least five full seasons of baseball. He was also a big personality, often clashing with reporters, eliciting as much controversy in the press as he did fanfare on the field.
In the 1950s, Ben Hibbs, the editor of The Post, pushed Rockwell to make his covers more topical and current, so as to increase circulation of what was already the magazine with highest circulation in the nation. In the summer of 1956, Rockwell envisioned the concept for this blockbuster cover. The idea was particularly timely, given that Williams was rumored to be on the verge of retirement. As early as 1954, Williams' had threatened to hang up his bat. 1954, The Post ran his autobiography in several parts and called it This is My Last Year. Capitalizing on this interest in Williams' career, Rockwell painted The Rookie (Red Sox Locker Room). Virginia Mecklenburg writes of the present work, "Baseball images had been popular fare for cover artists since the early years of the twentieth century, but for The Rookie, Rockwell went to great effort to feature real, recognizable ballplayers. He decided to do the painting nine months or more before the image was published, in March 1957, just as spring training for the baseball season got under way...Although Rockwell had painted portraits of movie stars and presidential candidates, never before had he portrayed celebrity in such equivocal terms." (Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Speilberg, Washington, D.C. 2010, pp. 161-62).
While Williams was the inarguable stand out of the Red Sox in the late 1950s, several other players commanded the nation's attention as well. Pitcher Frank Sullivan, right fielder Jackie Jensen, catcher Sammy White and second baseman Billy Goodman were all key members of the starting line-up and had avid followings in their own right. Frank Sullivan recalled being instructed by the Red Sox management team to comply with Rockwell's request to pose for this picture. He wrote, "In the mid-50s if the front office told you to drive to Stockbridge, and bring your uniform, that's exactly what you did. On an off day in 1956, Goodman, Sam White, and Jackie Jensen [and I] were told to motor west to the western Massachusetts town. When we got there we were greeted warmly by a small, slim man, whose name meant nothing to me. He posed us and took a number of pictures, explaining that the background would be the locker room we used in Sarasota, Florida, for spring training. I remember ragging on Jackie Jensen on the way back, saying the trip was all his idea, and the photographer didn't seem to know what he was doing. The following March, I pick up The Saturday Evening Post, and there we were on the cover. The man was an illustrator, not a photographer, and if you look closely, you'll see we are wearing street shoes, not spikes. The cover was titled 'The Rookie' and the man's name turned out to be Norman Rockwell." (Frank Sullivan, Life Is More Than 9 Innings, Hawaii, 2008). Ted Williams was unable to make the trip to Stockbridge so Rockwell worked from photos the Red Sox sent him to create his likeness. For the part of The Rookie, Rockwell tapped Sherman Safford, aged 17, from Pittsfield, Vermont, to pose as the young, eager player.
Baseball was not a new subject for Rockwell and he painted several other The Post covers, as well as countless other compositions. For Rockwell, not only was baseball America's pastime, it was often another showcase to demonstrate his preferred subject matter of men and boys at leisure. Virginia Mecklenburg writes, "Unlike Rockwell's joking baseball pictures--of boys playing pickup ball or disappointed umpires calling a game for rain--the face-off between a youngster...and a veteran player--pits youth against experience. The kid is gangly and eager. His white socks, cheap suitcase, and big hands mark him as a naïve newcomer with potential. The expression on Williams's face suggests that the thirty-eight year old slugger was not yet ready to welcome a challenger." (Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Speilberg, p. 182).
As in Rockwell's best work for The Saturday Evening Post, the subject of The Rookie is not Ted Williams or even baseball, but rather the championing of the underdog. From his very first cover for The Post in 1916, Boy with Baby Carriage, Rockwell has identified with downtrodden, the meek, and the over matched. This enduring theme is what, in large part, makes Rockwell's work both so touching and so universally understood. The rookie, posed for by Sherman Safford, a tall, high school boy aged 17, can be seen as Rockwell's avatar. Rockwell, ever insecure would have identified with the rookie, having often felt small, meek and overlooked--both throughout his childhood, and by the art world. An enduring theme of his works is to champion the little guy, who is always painted in a sympathetic and endearing light. And indeed, when looking at works such as The Rookie, the viewer finds him or herself rooting for the underdog.
Rockwell hired photographers to take the images for his works, often taking over 100 photographs for a single image. He preferred the photographers to be amateur and that the images be taken in black and white, so as not to influence his color selection. Much like a movie director, he changed the figures positioning, details of the background and their clothing throughout his deliberate creative process, which usually entailed doing several small studies in oil for color followed by a very detailed charcoal study to scale. He used color to dramatic effect (as evidenced here by the bold interplay of red, white and blue). Virginia Mecklenburg writes, "It is a tribute to, not a criticism of, his highly developed intellect and social sensibilities to acknowledge that Rockwell calculated his pictures for maximum and particular impact." (Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, p. 28)
The palm trees featured in The Rookie, locate this scene in Florida and identify the scene as spring training. Rockwell had visited the training facility down in Sarasota and taken a number of reference photos of the locker room for use in his final composition. Rockwell captured the locker room in great detail, from the carved graffiti in the wooden pole, rendered with sgraffito technique, to the items in the player's lockers. His detailed charcoal study for the finished cover reveals he decided to omit the waste and cigarette butts that were strewn across the floor. The myriad details in this composition, as in so many of Rockwell's highly finished compositions for The Post means that each viewing reveals a new detail.
Despite Rockwell's embrace of photography, he was at heart a formalist. He was deeply indebted to the Old Masters and a great admirer of Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt van Rijn, among others. The composition of The Rookie recalls the Renaissance practice of creating a pyramidal scheme in which the focus of composition is the high point of the triangle. In The Rookie, Rockwell has carefully arranged his figures into a pyramidal form with Ted Williams at the center, not unlike in Raphael's Sant'Antonio di Padova Altarpiece (Colonna Altarpiece), which also features seven figures carefully posed at staggered heights. In The Rookie, he has altered the traditional arrangement, however, with the addition of the figure of the rookie. While the rookie is off to the right of center, the height added by his hat makes him the literal high point of the composition, above Williams. All of the characters maintain visual focus on the rookie, also heightening the sense that he is, in fact, the center of the image, and our imagination. This is the compositional manifestation of Rockwell's fascination with the underdog, and a clever way to subtly displace Williams from his perch.
Rockwell has been oft criticized by the art world for being too literal, too illustrative in his work, perhaps as a result of his open reliance on photography. Yet while his methods and imagery may have differed from other artists of his time trying to capture America following the devastation of World War II and its subsequent boom, some of his contemporaries, including Edward Hopper, were focused on the same sort of everydayness that Rockwell championed in his work. It was the technique, more than the chosen subject, that created the sense of a vast divide. Karal Ann Marling discusses this aesthetic gulf, noting "When Edward Hopper painted studies of private emotions on display in public places, he stripped interiors bare of complexity to reveal the inner dilemma of the sitter: his windows looked out upon obdurate sheets of color. Rockwell, on the other hand, used windows to locate his scenes in the geography of a real story. " (K.A. Marling, Norman Rockwell, New York, 1997, p. 132)
Norman Rockwell's work has always been characterized as a reflection of our better selves, capturing America as it ought to be. His work is often also viewed as both of a moment and simultaneously timeless, in its communication of the universal truths of human nature. "In the twentieth century, visual imagery permeated American culture, ultimately becoming the primary means of communication. Rockwell's images have become part of a collective American memory. We remember selective bits and pieces of information and often reassemble them in ways that mingle fantasy with reality. We formulate memory to serve our own needs and purposes. Rockwell knew this instinctively: 'Everything I have ever seen or done has gone into my pictures in one way or another...Memory doesn't lie, though it may distort a bit here and there.'" (M.H. Hennessey, A. Knutson, Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People, exhibition catalogue, Atlanta, Georgia, 1999, p. 64) Laurie Norton Moffatt, Executive Director of The Norman Rockwell Museum writes, "His images convey our human shortcomings as well as our national ideals of freedom, democracy, equality, tolerance and common decency in ways that nobody could understand. He has become an American institution. Steven Spielberg recently said, 'Aside from being an astonishingly good storyteller, Rockwell spoke volumes about a certain kind of American morality.' It is a morality based on popular values and patriotism, a morality that yearns above all for goodness to trump evil." (Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People, New York, 1999, p. 26) As in all of Rockwell's greatest works, The Rookie (Red Sox Locker Room) depicts a distinctly American cultural phenomenon while also reflecting universal values. Today, it remains as appealing and heartwarming to contemporary viewers as it did when it was first painted.

Estudo Para Novos Garotos e Garotas que se Comportaram (Study for Extra Good Boys and Girls) - Norman Rockwell

Estudo Para Novos Garotos e Garotas que se Comportaram (Study for Extra Good Boys and Girls) - Norman Rockwell
Coleção privada
Óleo e lápis sobre cartão - 40x33 - 1939

The present work is a study for the December 16th, 1939 cover of The Saturday Evening Post (L.N. Moffatt, Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, vol. 1, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 1986, p. 143, no. C380) and is included as an addendum work in the Project Norman database created by the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Study for 'Extra Good Boys and Girls' manifests why "Norman Rockwell is generally credited with the invention of the modern American Christmas and the tender sentiments attached to it." (M.H. Hennessey, A. Knutson, Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People, exhibition catalogue, Atlanta, Georgia, 1999, p. 155) The largely secular vision of Christmas in 1930s America was almost entirely a result of mass media, and the character of Santa Claus satisfied a nation that was becoming increasingly focused on consumerism. Rockwell produced numerous holiday covers featuring Santa to satisfy the public's demand and, in so doing, helped to construct the modern American concept of Christmas. Indeed, "In many American homes Christmas and Thanksgiving weren't quite official until the Post arrived with a Norman Rockwell holiday cover." (S. Marker, Norman Rockwell, North Dighton, Massachusetts, 2004, p. 12)
Please note the present lot includes a copy of the cover of the December 16th, 1939 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.

A Carruagem de Natal (The Christmas Coach) - Norman Rockwell

A Carruagem de Natal (The Christmas Coach) - Norman Rockwell
Coleção privada
OST - 72x61 - 1930

The present painting was gifted by Norman Rockwell to his friend, fellow illustrator and studio mate, Clyde Forsythe. The lot includes a copy of a 1972 letter from Rockwell to Forsythe's family about the present work.
Charles Dickens wrote of Christmas, "Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveler, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!" (The Pickwick Papers, 1836) As exemplified by The Christmas Coach, published in the December 1930 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal, Norman Rockwell's art is much the same, capturing nostalgic moments that strike pleasant remembrances and recall a bygone era in America's history.
Ever since his first paying commission--received from Mrs. Arnold Constable in 1911 to produce Christmas cards--Rockwell has been inextricably linked to Christmas in America. He produced numerous magazine covers, illustrations and advertisements for the holiday, painted Christmas cards for Hallmark and designed holiday calendars for Brown and Bigelow. "So identified with this one season did Rockwell become that a number of his canvases which contain no explicit references whatever to Christmas--various generic winter scenes, for example, and even some scenes that lack any seasonal signature--are nevertheless thought of by enough people as being 'typical' Rockwell Christmas paintings so that they continue to be reproduced at Yuletide year after year." (J. Kirk, Christmas with Norman Rockwell, North Dighton, Massachusetts, 1990, p. 8)
While the present work lacks the most obvious of Christmas references, such as Santa Claus or a Christmas tree, the composition of travelers and goods bundled on an old-fashioned coach, driving through the snowy landscape, derives from Rockwell’s particular fascination with the Dickensian depiction of the holiday season. Karal Ann Marling explains, "One of the artist's favorite childhood memories was of his own father, sitting in a pool of lamplight at the dining room table at the turn of the century, reading Dickens aloud to his children. 'I would draw pictures of the different characters,' Rockwell remembered. 'Mr. Pickwick...Uriah Heep...I was very deeply impressed and moved by Dickens...The variety, sadness, horror, happiness, treachery;...the sharp impressions of dirt, food, inns, horses, streets; and people...' In 1945, Rockwell told the New Yorker that his parents had agreed to send him to art school after seeing a drawing of Ebenezer Scrooge that Norman had made while listening to his father read A Christmas Carol. His most effective Christmas covers drew upon his love for the world of Dickens and the pungent scent of realism Rockwell associate with the Olde England of his childhood memories. Rockwell did eight Dickens covers for the Post...between 1921 and 1938. Most of the holiday designs took as their theme the coach, its driver, the passengers, or the heart-warming trials involved in going home again for Christmas." (Merry Christmas!: Celebrating America's Greatest Holiday, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2009, p. 132)
Indeed, the present work’s composition closely recalls London Stagecoach, the December 5th, 1925 cover of The Saturday Evening Post, as well as The Christmas Coach (Dover Coach), published in the December 28th, 1935 issue of the Post and now in the collection of the Society of Illustrators’ Museum of American Illustration, New York. Here, Rockwell depicts a vibrantly-attired woman wrapped warmly for her ride home for the holidays on the U.S. Mail coach. Positioned next to the driver with his classic greatcoat and top hat, complete with a decorative sprig of holly, she is surrounded by a bounty of holiday gifts, from the patterned box on her lap to the plump goose hanging off the side of the seat.
With his classic attention to detail, Rockwell fully transports the viewer into this scene from a simpler, idealized yesteryear--an appealing escape for viewers, both then and now. Marling expounds, “In keeping with the home-and-hearth character of revivalism, many of Norman Rockwell’s most fully developed colonial works were executed not for the Post but for the Ladies’ Home Journal…often Rockwell’s pictures seem to have been painted simply because the artist wanted to. Full of romance and precise delineation of furniture, costume, carpets, and accessories, these independent compositions reflected his own interest in the accoutrements of the Colonial Revival…All created between 1930 and 1932, these early efforts matched the tone and content of the Ladies’ Home Journal. They were the kind of pictures readers clipped and framed for their bedroom walls, where they hung among the silhouettes of colonial worthies that were a decorating ‘must’ of the period.” (Norman Rockwell, New York, 1997, pp. 52-53)
Moreover, the optimism of these images provided a boost of good cheer during the holiday season in years of national uncertainty. “In the 1930s, with the onset of the Great Depression, the Colonial Revival also became a spiritual anchor in the stormy seas of despair—a ‘usable past.’…With doomsayers predicting the end of the republic, history offered a kind of reassurance.” (Norman Rockwell, p. 50) With The Christmas Coach, Rockwell succeeds not only in evoking the spirit of Dickens' stories and Colonial times, but also in capturing the nostalgia associated with Christmas and bringing the joy of the holiday to houses across America.

Fofocas (Gossips) - William Roberts

Fofocas (Gossips) - William Roberts
Coleção privada
OST - 70x61 - 1968

Modern life in all its varying forms had inspired the London-born Roberts from the very beginning of his career. Following his return to London after serving in France in the First World War, Roberts increasingly turned to the streets of the city as his artistic stimulus, capturing and celebrating the everyday life of London’s inhabitants. Bustling bus stops, crowded cafés, parks, boxing matches, street performers and a host of other settings and activities served as the subjects for the artist’s multi-figural compositions as he depicted life in the capital with what has been described as an unflinching Hogarthian eye. For Roberts, this was the central aim of painting, as he stated later in his life: ‘the artist who tells no more of his life and times, than a collection of abstract designs, might as well never have been born’ (W. Roberts, quoted in A. Gibbon Williams, William Roberts: An English Cubist, Aldershot & Burlington, Vermont, 2004, p. 82).
In Gossips, Roberts demonstrates his ability to ‘seize upon a familiar yet distinctly anti-picturesque form and transform it into a telling pictorial component’ (A.G. Williams, William Roberts: An English Cubist, Aldershot, 2004, p. 130). The distinctive composition, drawing upon his Cubist aesthetic, imbues an otherwise mundane scene of street gossip with a seemingly ritualistic mystery; conversation is crystallised amidst a scene of sideward glances, intriguing poses and exotic clothing.