Norman Rockwell's World Of Scouting
(1980 - Simon and Schuster)

(by William Harcourt) Norman Rockwell had a very long association with the Boy Scouts of America, producing many works for use as illustrations in, or covers for, their magazine, BOYS LIFE, as well as a yearly calendar. Most Rockwell collections only choose to feature one or two of his scouting images, so this volume stands out in focusing in on them. So, even though NORMAN ROCKWELL (MONTGOMERY), THE BEST OF NORMAN ROCKWELL, 102 FAVORITE PAINTINGS, PICTURES FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, NORMAN ROCKWELL (MARLING-TASCHEN), A SIXTY YEAR RETROSPECTIVE and the NORMAN ROCKWELL AND THE SATURDAY EVENING POST books, are all recommended before this volume, it still sports 36 new featured pieces, with another painting getting an even better presentation than before. In context of giving support to the Boy Scouts, there are also 'well-presented' pieces by Harold N. Anderson, Robert Baden-Powell (5), Dan Carter Beard and J.C. Leyendecker. There are 160 pages here, with 86 featuring the art, 53 of those each spotlighting a single large reproduction. Most images are captioned as to how they were used and the index in the back includes a simple list of all the Calendar paintings and where they can be found in the book.