Spencer Douglass Crockwell

Boy with Molotov Cocktail, Soviet troops on Hungarian Revolution

1943

Crockwell is as good as Rockwell. Many would agree with that statement including the editors of the Saturday Evening Post in which both artists were frequent contributors. In fact, ...

"Civil Rights." Evergood's early commentary on racial issues in the 1950s depicts four black men gagged, roped, and hanging from the "Tree of Life," which represents the unique interconnectedness of life. In the background, imprisoned blacks look on through a barbed-wire fence. Whites watch in horror but do nothing to help. Meanwhile, a two-legged, three-headed serpent wraps itself around the tree that both physically and symbolically separates the races. This is an important work in the history of American art. It may be one of the very earliest examples of a major American painter doing a major work that challenges racial segregation and injustice at a time when no one else would. The title of the work is inspired by a Historic Supreme Court decision on racial segregation. The Little Rock...

Three young boys talking. One of the boys is playing with a military jacket on the chair. Signed lower center. The illustrations of Douglas Crockwell were often simply signed “Douglass” to avoid confusion with the signature of Norman Rockwell, particularly since their work was being published on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post during the same period. Necessary too, because Crockwell also worked very realistically, and like Rockwell, was particularly good with children. Their backgrounds, however, were entirely different. Crockwell was born in Chicago, Ohio, and took his degree in Science at Washington University, followed by study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago and the St. Louis School of Fine Arts. He received his first commission for a cover for The Saturday Evening Post in 1933, and this was followed by many more, as well as work for other periodicals and a long list of national advertisers. During the ‘thirties, he also completed Post Office murals in Vermont, New York State and Mississippi, and began to work on experimental animated films. The films, and inventing a “pan-stereo” viewing...

Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Signed Upper Left Story illustration for “The Stars Look Down” by A.J. Cronin, illustrated by Cornwell and W. Smithson Broadhead...