Rockwell rocks!

Fashionable art critics once had nothing but disdain for Norman Rockwell, labeling his idealized view of America as "Gee-Gosh-Shucksism." But Rockwell's work is enjoying a resurgence of respect; critics like him again—and even "admit it in polite society" | Marvin Olasky

The World Series this fall included three improbable ninth-inning comebacks, but one going on now in New York City is even more unlikely. Manhattan's artists, students, and critics are flocking to the Guggenheim Museum, a shrine to abstract art, and admiring an exhibit, 23 years after his death, of the 20th-century American painter most despised by the modern-art establishment.

"Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People" has already been on national tour for almost two years, but only now, as journalists wonder whether the Sept. 11 events have changed the way we look at America, is the exhibit confronting the arts cognoscenti on their own turf. Listen to the grudging admission of New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman: "Nowadays, in our flag-shrouded anxiety, the cornball sentiments ... seem less remote and contrived than they did before Sept. 11. [A Rockwell painting] can make you gulp despite yourself."