A GLIMPSE BEYOND THE PORTRAIT.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

Not even Norman Rockwell's own life resembled a Norman Rockwell painting. While Rockwell was painting his endearing visual bromides about an America many hoped for but few actually experienced - tousle-haired kids mischievously trespassing into a swimming hole, townfolks spreading innocent gossip, an extended family gathering for a bountiful Thanksgiving meal - he was also working his way through three marriages.

He and his first wife routinely pursued extramarital affairs; his second wife was checked into a mental hospital and may have attempted suicide before dying early of a heart attack. Rockwell struggled with racist editors who forbade his including non-subservient blacks in his work, his own depression and a workaholic nature and self-doubts about his own place in the pantheon of contemporary artists.

Appropriately, all this is revealed gently, among more comforting and benign anecdotes, in ``Norman Rockwell: Painting America,'' another in a series of ``American Masters'' documentaries about the arts. It's a timely special, coming on the heels of a Rockwell retrospective in New York and a positive critical reassessment in the sober pages of The New York Times.

Writer/director Elena Mannes tracks down interviewees ranging from art critic Robert Hughes to filmmaker Steven Spielberg (who, too neatly, speaks of Rockwell in cinematic terms) to his son Peter Rockwell and some of his models. Mannes digs up clips in which Rockwell is interviewed by both Edward R. Murrow and Joey Bishop. When Rockwell tells Bishop his favorite artist is Rembrandt, Bishop's studio audience applauds him as if he has mentioned that he works with disabled children.

From all this, she forms a solid portrait of a seemingly regular guy who, pipe always at the ready, played up his avuncular image - he even agreed to a contest sponsored by a cat food company to paint a winner and his or her cat. She hints, of course, that he was no doubt far more complex than anyone realized or even bothered to discern. Tales of how Rockwell came to paint some of his famous works make him seem both acutely sensitive and like a hack.

Mannes skirts the issue of Rockwell's legacy somewhat diplomatically. Art historians on hand here particularly decry his efforts to inject meaning into his work, while Spielberg calls one such painting one of Rockwell's best.

Rockwell himself always fretted over whether he was a credible serious artist, and so what if he wasn't? He was indisputably an excellent craftsman and a warm-hearted illustrator with a keen eye for detail. He was well-paid for his efforts and, as Spielberg puts it, he ``painted the American Dream better than anyone.'' Who needs high-brow accolades on top of that?

The facts

The show: ``Norman Rockwell: Painting America.''

What: Documentary from the ``American Masters'' series about the beloved painter of Americana.

Where: KCET.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Our rating: Three stars.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Norman Rockwell's ordinary public persona belied a much more complicated personal life.