A record for Norman Rockwell: $46 million paid for ‘Saying Grace’

After a year in which abstract expressionist art dominated the international market, admirers of traditional painting will be pleased that the year ended on a triumphant note.

Saying Grace by Norman Rockwell sold at a Sotheby's auction of American art in New York on December 4th for $46 million (€33 million), more than doubling its $20 million highest estimate and setting a new auction record for an American painting. Two telephone bidders competed for nine minutes for the oil-on-canvas, which measures 110cm by 104cm.

Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was one of the most famous American artists of the 20th century and best known as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines. During a seven-decade career he produced more than 800 magazine covers and advertisements for more than 150 companies. The original paintings are now keenly sought after by collectors.

Saying Grace was painted in 1951 and used to illustrate the cover of the Saturday Evening Post for its Thanksgiving issue on November 24th. Rockwell was paid $3,500 for the assignment.

Over a 50-year period, Rockwell painted more than 300 covers for the paper and Saying Grace topped a readers' poll as the all-time favourite. Sotheby's said Rockwell's paintings "presented momentary yet extraordinarily compelling glimpses into the lives of ordinary Americans".

A catalogue note drew attention to the painting’s “acute attention to detail” and “masterfully rendered minutiae”, such as the glass containers on the table, the grandmother’s crocodile handbag and her grandson’s newly shorn haircut, the curling cigarette smoke and the half-eaten breakfast on the foreground table.

Among other Rockwell paintings sold in the auction were The Gossips, which fetched $8.4 million (€6 million) and Walking to Church, $3.2 million (€2.3 million).

The paintings had belonged to the Saturday Evening Post's art director, Kenneth J Stuart, who received them as gifts from Rockwell while the two men worked together. The collection was inherited by Stuart's sons and were on loan to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, for the past 18 years.

It is not known who bought the paintings at Sotheby's but, according to the New York Times, leading collectors of Rockwell's paintings include "the film-makers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, as well as the businessman H Ross Perot and Alice L Walton, the Walmart heiress".