When You Know
I have a quiz for you today. Who's artistic work has spanned the portrait of President John F. Kennedy, the original cover of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and every Boy Scouts calendar between 1925 and 1976? If I said Willie Gillis (for the baby boomers) or the Thanksgiving cover, Freedom from Want, of the 1943 Saturday Evening Post, you'd know the answer is Norman Rockwell.
Rockwell's art has been published in one form or another, from his first cover in 1916, called Mother's Day Off (Saturday Evening Post), until his last, The Spirt of 1976. Covering sixty years of everyday life, with 4,000 original works in his lifetime, no one has captured the human spirit like Norman Rockwell.
Norman was born on February 3, 1894, in New York City to Jarvis Waring Rockwell and Anne Mary "Nancy" Rockwell. His family traced their roots to an ancestor from England, John Rockwell, one of the first settlers of Windsor, Connecticut, in 1635. As a result, Norman was born to represent the American persona and show it through his art.
We're Glad You Were Born
Rockwell had known his life would revolve around art, and he left his High School for Chase Art School at the age of 14. He would go on to the National Academy of Design and finally to the Art Students League. His career started when his work was published by St. Nicholas Magazine, the Boy Scouts of America magazine Boys' Life, and other youth publications.
However, his first major artistic job came at age 18, illustrating Carl H. Claudy's book Tell Me Why: Stories about Mother Nature.
This Boys' Life
The cover illustration and previously published work landed Norman a full-time job as a staff artist at Boys' Life. He got paid $50 a cover. He was only 18 at the time. Norman was promoted to art editor within the first year and would hold that title for the next three years. He produced several covers but none more famous than Scout at Ship's Wheel in 1913 (below).
In 1921, Rockwell was 21 and moved to New Rochelle, N.Y., where he met cartoonist Clyde Forsythe, who worked for The Saturday Evening Post. Clyde would end up promoting Norman to his superiors and showing his artwork. Rockwell was soon hired, and his Mother's Day Off was on the cover of one of the most popular magazines in America. His published covers would set off the love affair between Rockwell and the American public. The relationship was evident based on his eight published covers, in just his first year at The Saturday Evening Post. Ultimately, Rockwell published 323 original covers for The Saturday Evening Post over 47 years.
Fact or Fiction
Rockwell's work led to offers outside of his job at the Post. He would create covers for other magazines of the day, most notably the Literary Digest, the Country Gentleman (my favorite), Leslie's Weekly, Judge, Peoples Popular Monthly, and Life magazine.
Even though Norman had not worked for the Boy Scout in 20 years, he would create his first of fifty-one original illustrations for the official Boy Scouts of America annual calendar. These calendars can still be seen in the Norman Rockwell Art Gallery at the National Scouting Museum in Cimarron, New Mexico.
Capraesque
As time continued, Norman would be the illustrator that captured the mood of the public during the Great Depression and World War II. A turning point for Rockwell was when he painted the Four Freedoms series, which he completed in seven months. The series was inspired by a speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt, wherein Roosevelt described and articulated Four Freedoms for universal rights. Rockwell then painted Freedom from Want, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, and Freedom from Fear.
The United States Department of the Treasury took notice of Rockwell's capacity to inspire and later promoted war bonds by exhibiting the originals in sixteen cities. Rockwell considered Freedom of Speech to be the best of the four.
Giving Back
As the 1940s continued, so did Rockwell's need to continue to give back. He would spend the winter months as an artist-in-residence at Otis College of Art and Design. Students sometimes posed as models for his Saturday Evening Post covers. In 1949, Rockwell even donated an original Post cover, April Fool, in a library fundraiser.
All was not easy for Norman as he would lose his wife in 1959 to a sudden heart attack. The loss was a cause of great grief for him, but he worked through the pain with his son Thomas. They produced Rockwell's autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator, and released it in 1960.
He would also be submitting his last cover to the Saturday Evening Post in 1963.
Freedom of Want
Rockwell would spend the next ten years painting for Look magazine, where his work depicted his focus at the time, interests in civil rights, poverty, and space exploration. In 1969, as a tribute to Rockwell's 75th anniversary of his birth, officials of Brown & Bigelow and the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) asked Rockwell to pose in Beyond the Easel, the calendar illustration that year.
At 82 years of age, Rockwell's last commission for the Boy Scouts of America was a calendar illustration entitled The Spirit of 1976, concluding a partnership that generated 471 images for periodicals, guidebooks, calendars, and promotional materials. His connection to the BSA spanned 64 years, marking it the longest professional association of his career.
Thank You
Rockwell died on November 8, 1978, of emphysema at age 84 in his home, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
He lived an incredible life. Norman had relationships with several Presidents of the United States, Dignitaries from around the world, and friendships with some of the most influential people of the time. He was an artist who captured the mood of the times in simple and elegant form. A Rockwell painting could move you to tears or make you laugh out loud through his art. I am grateful he shared his gifts with us all.
His images will live on for the world to enjoy. You can visit the Norman Rockwell Museum online or in-person in Stockbridge, Massachusetts if you'd like to remember his work.
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