My immediate reaction to local artist Richard Jones’ latest painting echoed that of seeing Norman Rockwell’s 1965 “Murder in Mississippi” for the first time.
Americans grow up with Rockwell’s work even if they never hear his name. His wholesome, reassuring portraits of American life are everywhere:
“Saying Grace,” “Freedom from Want,” “The Runaway,” “Fishing Trip,” and others we see to this day on placemats, greeting cards, advertisements.
Jones is as Dickensian. Other local artists tend more toward landscapes and rural scenes, such as Alan Bull’s rustic driveways with rusty pick-up trucks. Comparable to the Hudson River School, they might be called the Saltmarsh School.
Jones is known for his downtown scenes, no doubt why his work is so frequently seen in State and Pleasant street shops, and therefore, known to Newburyporters.
He also has the advantage of serving as city clerk for 18 years in an office keeping him downtown long enough to paint it from memory if he had to.
By capturing it in every season, day and night, rain or shine or snow, with people singing or shopping, walking and talking, Jones is the Norman Rockwell of Newburyport.
But the gallery of both artists is more than most everyone thought. I cannot not be the only white Boomer who saw “Murder in Mississippi” for the first time shortly after an unarmed African-American man was killed under the knee of a Minneapolis cop in 2020.
After 60 years of associating Rockwell entirely with heartwarming, “Leave It To Beaver” Americana, it came as a shock.
Now, we have Jones’ “By Myself but Not Alone.” A depiction of Newburyport High School’s graduation in 1941.
I’d heard of that incident, so the subject was no surprise. Former Essex County Sheriff Frank Cousins told the story about four years ago at a Martin Luther King Day commemoration.
Cousins’ father graduated with that class. However, the mayor’s daughter would not walk with a person of color. She nagged Dad, Dad pressured the principal, and, as a compromise, Cousins Sr. was relegated to the back of the line.
I’m no art critic, and the painting is so rich in detail, that I’ll leave full descriptions to others – including to Jones himself, who describes on social media the details and their distinct purposes.
As for the impact of the image? Riveting. In its force, its thoroughness, its humanity.
Followed by surprise – not at the subject, but by who painted it. All of which recalls any Norman Rockwell fan’s first sight of “Murder in Mississippi.”
Granted, a portrait of a high school graduation with most of the people in it cheering and applauding conveys none of the menace of one of murder in which the murderers are not in the frame but cast as shadows on the ground.
For that matter, Jones’ “By Myself” is more comparable to two other Rockwell paintings: “Moving In” (1967) showing integration of a white neighborhood and “The Trouble We All Live With” (1964), which was turned into a meme last year with Kamala Harris as the shadow of Ruby Bridges.
In fact, it’s easy to imagine Frank Cousins Sr. as an adaptation of Bridges. Notice, for instance, the posture.
However, Rockwell depicted the South where Jim Crow was still the law of the land; Jones portrays a city where we like to believe we have always, unanimously been on the side of William Lloyd Garrison.
Rockwell held up a mirror to America in real time. Jones gives us a window into a past that is now a divisive issue in the present.
Here in Newburyport, as is true across the country, the MAGA movement is working to keep “uncomfortable” (for white people) history out of American schools.
What they think they hide is as clear and direct as any Rockwell or Jones illustration: White people have an “again” in “great again.” Minorities do not.
Let’s raise a toast to Jones for including that canvas in his vast catalogue of otherwise warm-hearted, reassuring portraits of Newburyport life.
Newbury resident Jack Garvey can be reached at hammlynn@gmail.com. Richard Jones’ art can be viewed at richardburkejones.com.