AIC Gold | Champions

Celebrating its 73rd year, we pay tribute to the most iconic image world wide of the American art form of four men singing close harmony.

I recently took delivery of an original copy of the famous magazine and thought I'd share it with you as well as explore its history and impact.

Inside the Famous Magazine


Credits and Table of Contents

The Cover Story 'ollywood On The Thames - by Henry Pringle

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Artwork Appears Everywhere

The Rockwell quartet has appeared many places relating to the Barbershop Harmony Society.

The cover of our July 1997 Issue of the Harmonizer shows Bob Worlock, Gary Will, Don Andrew and Neil Chase recreating “the pose” for the cover shot of the Arts and Entertainment bulletin in Bend, Oregon to promote their chapter as host of the Evergreen District’s Spring Prelims.

In 1989 the Barbershop Society announced a MasterCard (MBNA) with the Rockwell artwork to promote the Young Men in Harmony program. The Society receives royalties for each card issued with proceeds going to YMIH. It was one of the first famous artworks issued of the 400 offered by a New York marketing firm. The image is now available on a Platinum Plus VISA card. Over the past 10 years the popularity of this card has generated over seven figures in royalties.

The cover of our 1982 Quartet Champs, Classic Collection created one of the most popular LP covers with their depiction of the Rockwell quartet.

Many barbershoppers got a nice surprise when they received their copy of the 1982 issue of their magazine. The Rockwell quartet in all its glory appeared on the cover for the first time.

In October of 1994 the Saturday Evening Post re-issued the original cover art on their publication to the joy of barbershoppers everywhere. There was no mention in the issue about the cover other than to give Rockwell credit.

There are several items for sale with the iconic image, T-Shirts, Postcards, Mugs, Christmas Ornaments, and the print, framed. Lots of Barbershoppers have this image in the “Barbershop” room or on their wall.

On the Society’s 70^th anniversary a 30-foot tall scrim of the Rockwell Quartet was unveiled in Downtown Nashville, new home of the Society’s headquarters. The HUGE representation of the iconic image was made possible by a generous donation from Sue and Roger Lewis. It now graces the north face of the HQ building and was viewed by thousands attending that summer’s convention in Music City.

A rare lithograph of Norman Rockwell’s original drawing of a barbershop quartet has been donated to the Society by Louis “Lou” Enkelmann and his wife, Mary of St. Genevieve, Mo.

Lou presented the framed sketch to the International Board at its mid-winter meeting in Honolulu in January. It is intended, he said, “to hang in Harmony Hall where all visiting barbershoppers can enjoy it.

An 20-year member of the Society, Lou is a member of the Frank Thorne Chapter. He bought the picture, he said, about 15 years ago when he was a member of the St. Louis Chapter. Its one of 35 lithographs made by Rockwell of the original drawing submitted to the Saturday Evening Post before completing the painting that became a Post cover.

He explained that Rockwell in 1972 selected the drawings of what he considered his eight best paintings and took them to a lithographer in Paris. Thirty-five copies of the quartet picture were made, each was signed by the artist, who then “broke the plate and burned the original sketch.”

Lou, himself, an art collector, said such prints are known as “artist’s proofs:” the notation “A/P” appears at the bottom of the picture. Rockwell also added a different touch of color to each litho; in the print given to the Society, is a bit of red in the tenor’s necktie.

Lou declined to estimate the value of the picture; “if an owner wants to put his up for auction, its worth whatever the high bidder wants to pay for it,” he said. But he did add that between the time he bought the print and the time he picked it up, Rockwell died. He was offered (and refused) twice the amount he paid for the picture if he would sell it back to the agency, he said.

Rockwell painted the “Barbershop Quartet” for the cover of the September 26, 1936 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. And in doing so, he painted himself into the hearts of harmony lovers everywhere.

Norman was a brilliant story-teller. His people seemed to really come alive. Listen! You can almost hear that quartet sing. They’re lost in the chords of one of the good old songs, Aura Lee ..., or is it By The Old Mill Stream? No matter. Before long they’ll be singing a few of the current hits of that year. I’m An Old Cowhand, Shoe Shine Boy, It Is True What They Say About Dixie? and that old favorite the Whiffenpoof Song.

That was 1936, three years before Society Founder O.C. Cash and Rupe Hall’s chance meeting in the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City launched the lively revival of the barbershop quartet.

What a delightful surprise is was, then, to discover Norman Rockwell’s original oil painting of the quartet. We first glimpsed it from the foyer, hanging in the dining room of the lovely home of Bill and Louise Holland of Winnetka, Ill safe and sound. It has been lovingly preserved and treasured by these kind people.

It’s a fairly large painting, measuring 27 x 36 inches, and was a gift to Bill and Louise from Bill’s dad, Nathan.

The story really begins, though, about forty years ago in New Rochelle, NY., a popular artist colony of the day and home to Nathan Holland and Norman Rockwell. They were friends, and Nathan often helped Norman find props and costumes for many of his paintings.

In 1939, three years after he painted the “Barbershop Quartet”, Rockwell was working on a cover for the March 18^th issue of the Post. It was a scene with an elderly druggist preparing a prescription for a rather apprehensive little fellow with the sniffles. Hanging on the wall behind the druggist can be seen his pharmacy college diploma. This was one of the many props Nathan had furnished and actually belonged to his father. This, naturally gave special meaning to him, and he asked Norman if he might have the picture when the Post returned it. Norman, who gave many of his pictures away, agreed. Unfortunately, the painting was never returned. Instead, Rockwell gave Nathan the painting of the “Barbershop Quartet”! And it hung in Nathan’s home for over thirty years. Son, Bill said, “I grew up with the painting. The quartet is a part of my life. I played under that picture for years.”

Back in the early ‘70s, when Nathan came west with Bill and his family, the painting found a new sanctuary with Bill and his new bride.

At the time Rockwell painted the “Barbershop Quartet” he was getting about $3000 apiece for his covers. A princely sum for those days.

Aware that they had a treasure of some worth, the Hollands, on a visit to Stockbridge, Mass, phoned Rockwell hoping to establish a value on the painting for insurance purposes.

Rockwell believing the picture to be one of the many lost in the fire that destroyed his studio in the late ‘40s, was delighted to learn that it was safe and sound and wanted to buy it back. But the deep sentimental attachment the Hollands had for the painting discouraged that idea. Mr. Rockwell recommended Dannenberg Galleries of New York City, which appraised the picture at $15,000! That was 1971.

The Hollands then loaned the painting to the Dannenberg Galleries as part of a traveling exhibit entitled “Norman Rockwell – A Sixty-Year Retrospective.” It was “on the road” most of 1972 and 1973 and exhibited in some of America’s most prestigious galleries.

In July of 1973, despite an invitation to be part of a tour to the Orient, the painting came home to stay. During its travels it was insured for $25,000!

IN 1976 the Hollands received a call from a New York art dealer, who has a client willing to pay $45,000 for the “Barbershop Quartet”. A more recent appraisal set the fair market value at $90,000. Today the masterpiece is insured for $100,000. Truly a pearl of great price.

Rockwell was a great admirer of Pablo Picasso, and his canvases of the twenties and thirties reflect a simplicity that smacks of that influence. The “Barbershop Quartet” is an excellent example of that simplicity. The lack of specific setting, a mark of his earlier covers, gives the figures an almost abstract look.

Norman once said, “The way I paint is terrible, piling paint on varnish, varnish on paint coat after coat, without ample drying time. It was John Atherton who said of my work, “It’s a wonder your paintings don’t explode.”

Norman Rockwell, in his own words, did not paint for posterity. He once said, “Let the next generation paint its own pictures.” So the “Barbershop Quartet was not painted to last. It was painted strictly as a cover copy.

The prize, though, was surely worth preserving, The Hollands sent it off for restoration, where it was backed with new canvas adhered with bee’s wax and resin. A few tiny cracks in the paint were repaired and a new frame added to enhance the simplicity of Rockwell’s masterful composition.

The “Barbershop Quartet” was one of the last pictures Norman painted using live models. He was finding the camera a more and more useful tool in capturing these difficult poses. The costumes the men are wearing no doubt came from Rockwell’s personal collection of over 200 outfits he kept on hand.

Some of the poses he demanded put quite a strain on the models. Take a look at the quartet in the painting again. Can you imagine holding that facial expression fifteen or twenty minutes at a time?

Well, it was hard on Norman, too, as he tells us, “I was always painting against time, rushing to finish before the models rest period or before the light changed. I was under awful tension. When quitting time came, I was a wreck.”

With it all, he was a master at capturing ordinary people enjoying special moments. The quartet is a superb example of this talent.

The men who posed for the quartet were some if the same general mix we know today. They were residents of the town of New Rochelle and a fair cross section of the town’s occupations. The barber (on the left) holding the razor and mug was actually one of the town’s barbers. The shaving mug, which Norman borrowed from the barbershop, belonged to Doctor Koch, a physician in New Rochelle. The tall gentleman in the red vest is a member of the New Rochelle Fire Department. The man with the brush and comb is Carl Johnson, Rockwell’s assistant. Carl traced Norman’s sketches onto the canvas, gathered props, ran errands, provided asked-for criticism and occasionally appeared in the background as a face in the crowd in many Rockwell covers.

The man on the right, the customer whose shave was happily interrupted by the harmony, was one of Rockwell’s artist friends, Walter Beech Humphrey, a fine portrait artist who once did a portrait of Bill Holland’s mother.

There was a time the so-called serious art critics were scathing in their review of his work. They called it Schlock, Schmaltzy – lacking in subtlety depth. Well, Norman’s place in American Art grows more secure daily, and an original Rockwell oil can go for as much as $200,000 today.

The “Barbershop Quartet” enshrines him in the hearts of Barbershoppers throughout our Society.

On his tenth birthday, September 26, 1936, Dr. Tom Prince was given his first bicycle. Tom had asked his parents for a bike to help him deliver The Saturday Evening Post. Young Tom grew up to become a surgeon and a Barbershopper. He always admired the Norman Rockwell painting, “Close Harmony” and displayed anything that displayed the picture.

Last summer, he observed the replica of the Post cover on a postcard and plastic tray being sold at a barbershop event. It was the first time he’d noted the issue date displayed – September 26, 1936 – the same date he delivered that same magazine on his new bike.

He was also the baritone of The Dignitaries – 1994 Dixie District Senior Quartet Champs with John Ribble (tenor), Gil Oxendine (Lead), and Jack Henley (bass). The Dignitaries are still singing with son John Oxendine (Tenor) and Bob Roak (bass). They are one of the longest lasting quartets in the Society having organized in 1958 and they’ve been singing ever since. This is Tom’s 49th year in the quartet, still singing at the age of 83.

Born: February 3, 1894
New York, New York
Died: November 8, 1978
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
American illustrator

HISTORY

The Barbershop Quartet by Norman Rockwell

Inside the Famous Magazine

Artwork Appears Everywhere