Jerry Saltz unearths an interesting issue while covering the death of Thomas Kinkade. He quotes a critic who turned up his nose at Norman Rockwell’s kitsch. In recent years, Rockwell’s work has been re-interpreted as classic American art.

Even in the thirties, Clement Greenberg worried about kitsch, the split between popular and avant-garde taste. “The same culture produces a painting by Braque and a Saturday Evening Post cover,” he wrote, fretting that “real art would not stand a chance next to … Norman Rockwell.”

Jerry Saltz on Thomas Kinkade, 1958-2012 (New York Magazine)