The Problem We All Live With
| The Problem We All Live With |
|---|
| Norman Rockwell , 1961 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 91 × 150 cm |
| Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Link to the picture |
The Problem We All Live With ( The problem with which we all live ) is a painting Norman Rockwell from the year 1963. It is as iconographic work of the civil rights movement in the United States viewed. It shows Ruby Bridges , a six-year-old African-American girl, on November 14, 1960, on her way to the William Frantz Elementary School, an all-white public school during the New Orleans School Desegregation Crisis. Because of threats and violence against her, she is accompanied by four Deputy US Marshals . The picture is cut so that the heads of the marshals are cropped at the shoulders. On the wall behind her is the racist disparagement " nigger " and the letters " KKK ". A tomato that was thrown on the wall and burst there is also recognizable as a stain. The white protesters are not visible because the viewer takes their point of view. The painting is an oil painting on canvas, with the dimensions 91 cm high and 150 cm wide.
history
The image was originally published as the "centerfold" of the January 14, 1964 issue of Look . Rockwell had terminated his contract with the Saturday Evening Post the previous year due to dissatisfaction with the limits it placed on expressing political issues, and Look had given him a forum for his progressive social interests, particularly civil rights and racial integration. Rockwell developed similar themes in Southern Justice (Murder in Mississippi) and New Kids in the Neighborhood . In contrast to his earlier work for the Post , in The Problem We All Live With and these other works, blacks are portrayed as sole protagonists rather than as observers, or as part of a group, or only in subordinate roles. As in New Kids in the Neighborhood , The Problem We All Live With shows a black child as the main character. As in Southern Justice , strong light-dark contrasts are used to underline racial themes.
At Bridges' suggestion, President Barack Obama had the picture hung in the hallway outside the Oval Office in the White House from July to October 2011 . The art historian William Kloss noted:
“The N-word there - it sure stops you. There's a realistic reason for having the graffiti as a slur, [but] it's also right in the middle of the painting. It's a painting that could not be hung even for a brief time in the public spaces [of the White House]. I'm pretty sure of that. "
“The N word there [in the picture] - it makes you pause immediately. There is a specific motif for this offensive graffito [in the picture], [but] it is also exactly in the middle of the picture. It is a painting that, even for a short time, could not have hung in public spaces [of the White House]. I'm pretty sure of that. "
In the series American Crime Story of the cable TV broadcaster FX , the picture was shown in the episode The People vs. O. J. Simpson used in 2016 by defense attorney Johnnie Cochran in the 1995 murder trial to “spruce up” the Simpsons house before the jury visit.
Web links
- President Obama talking with Ruby Bridges, The Problem We All Live With painting (YouTube.com-The White House channel)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Deborah Solomon: American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2013, ISBN 978-0-374-11309-4 , pp. 378 .
- ^ A b c Richard Halpern: Norman Rockwell: the underside of innocence . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2006, pp. 124–131 (English, 201 pages, limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ Bob Greene: September 4, 2011.
- ^ A b "The Problem We All Live With", Norman Rockwell, 1963. Oil on canvas, 36 "× 58". Norman Rockwell Museum, archived from the original on September 27, 2011 ; Retrieved August 26, 2011 .
- ↑ O say, can you see.
- ^ A b Daniel Grant: July 24, 1989.
- ^ Exile on Main Street . In: The Economist . December 2, 1999 ( economist.com ).
- ↑ Laura P. Claridge: 2001.
- ↑ Josh Gerstein: August 24, 2011.
- ↑ Emily Nussbaum: Not-Guilty Pleasure. In: The New Yorker. February 8, 2016 ( newyorker.com ).