The Genius of Norman Rockwell’s Triple Self-Portrait
September 28, 2021
Norman Rockwell is the quintessential American painter and illustrator and one of my favorite all-time artists. He has produced over 4,000 works in his lifetime. Among those, he has illustrated over 40 books including the two iconic works Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn from my favorite author of all time, Mark Twain. Rockwell also had a long tenure creating illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post and The Boy Scouts of America, and then in 1960, he produced one of the most famous self-portraits in American art history the Triple Self-Portrait.
Famous in part, because, unlike Rembrandt who created more than 90 self-portraits in his lifetime, Rockwell is known to have done only three. And famous also because of the curious mystery that Rockwell slid into the portrait, a sly joke, the meaning of which is frankly so well hidden in plain sight, that even when Rockwell revealed the true nature of the painting, art historians and aficionados missed it.
So what exactly did everyone miss? The portrait in and of itself is an amazing nod to Rockwell’s illustrative style and portrait narrative as you see Rockwell in front of a canvas, staring in a mirror, seemingly painting a portrait of himself with various odd accouterments hanging from the canvas. The mystery lies in the strange fact that the “painted” Rockwell is painting a portrait of himself without glasses, a curious alteration from the bespectacled painter we see before us.
So why then the change? Why are the glasses missing? Rockwell clearly has glasses on, so why then omit them in the “portrait within a portrait?” Could it be that Rockwell just preferred his look without glasses? Perhaps, but why then have anyone in the portrait wear glasses at all? Perhaps it was just a need for variation and an attempt to not have to paint the same version of himself thrice. The only issue with that is that Rockwell was a narrative illustrator, meaning his paintings told a story, and never once has his work defied logic. There was always a meaning for a thing.
Then what was the meaning for this? The answer is actually quite simple yet devilishly genius. So simple in fact that Rockwell himself revealed the answer in a photo recreation of this painting and everyone still missed it.
At the heart of the issue is the seated Rockwell using his reflection in the mirror as a reference in order to paint himself, and yet, where he has glasses on, he paints himself without glasses. The issue here is the assumption that the seated Rockwell is staring at himself in the mirror. Take another look and ask yourself who is Rockwell really looking at?
That’s right. It would seem that Rockwell isn’t staring back at himself at all, instead, you can clearly see that he is looking at “us,” the viewer. However, who would have been the viewer at the time this portrait was being painted if none other than Rockwell himself! So the seated Rockwell wasn’t using himself as a reference, he was using the real Rockwell who was actually painting the portrait. It also makes this portrait a clever way for Rockwell to tell us he wasn’t wearing glasses when he painted it.
So the Triple Self-Portrait is essentially Rockwell painting a portrait of himself painting a portrait of him painting a portrait of himself painting a portrait of him. It’s a fascinating and mind-blowing concept, a type of artistic Mobius strip if you will.
Rockwell would reveal his intention behind the piece from his photo recreation of the famed painting. The photo shows Rockwell looking directly at the viewer and not referencing himself at all, along with several photos gathered at the bottom of the frame, which allude to the fractal nature of the work where he paints himself painting himself painting himself painting himself.
Norman Rockwell was born February 3, 1894 and died November 8, 1978 and remains one of the greatest American artists of all time.