Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)

Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)

Norman Rockwell was probably the most loved and admired American painter in the last 50 years.

He was born on February 3rd, 1894, in New York City and started his career in 1912 when he illustrated a brochure for an American Scouting magazine "Boys' Life". Until 1915, Norman Rockwell also worked with advertising agencies which was more lucrative, though he confessed to preferring the freedom of magazine illustration.

Rockwell gained national fame when The Saturday Evening Post, the magazine with the highest circulation in the country, published on the cover of the May 20th, 1916 issue, one of his illustrations, Boy with Baby Carriage, where we saw a young, well-dressed boy pushing a baby carriage under the mockery of his friends going to play baseball

His favorite themes would earn him public favor: infancy and family life, first loves, departures and returns home, childhood and old-age, without forgetting the holidays. From 1919 to 1943, each year Rockwell illustrated a Christmas cover for The Post.

His last cover for The Saturday Evening Post, presented John F. Kennedy. It was published in 1963, December 14th, one month after the President was murdered. New editorial politics considered the pictures and ideas expressed by the painter were outdated and The Post ended his 47 years' contribution (420 covers).

Rockwell was 70 years when he started new contributions to important magazines like "Look" or "McCall's." He painted his last cover in 1976, for the Independence Bicentennial. That same year, the town of Stockbridge organized the longest procession of its history in his honor. One year later, he received the Medal of Freedom. He died November 8th, 1978 at 84, in his home in Stockbridge.

Fabrice RIFF Homepage
www.multimania.com/friff/norman.htm

To augment the exhibit, the Historical Museum also displayed Rockwell's painting, His First Day at School, on loan from the permanent collection of Springfield's Museum of Fine Arts.

Norman Rockwell is best known for his drawings which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, the first of which was published on the cover of the May 1916 issue. His themes of family and everyday life have given him a strong, nationwide appeal. He was quoted as saying "Maybe as I grew up and found the world wasn't the perfectly pleasant place I had thought it to be, I unconsciously decided that, even if it wasn't an ideal world, it should be, so I painted only the ideal aspects of it.

Rockwell, a native of New York City, lived in Stockbridge where he died in 1978 at age 84. Many of his Stockbridge neighbors were models for his work.

From: Springfield Library and Museums Association
Norman Rockwell: Drawing the American Dream
www.tfaoi.com/newsmu/nmus100a.htm

The cover of The Saturday Evening Post was his showcase for over forty years, giving him an audience larger than that of any other artist in history. Over the years he depicted there a unique collection of Americana, a series of vignettes of remarkable warmth and humor. In addition, he painted a great number of pictures for story illustrations, advertising campaigns, posters, calendars, and books.

From: Illustration House, Artists' Biographies
www.illustration-house.com/bios/rockwell_bio.html

Subjects for Colonel Philadelphia (original painting for "Poor Richard's Almanac")

Norman Rockwell Modeling for Traffic Conditions
Saturday Evening Post, No. 141, (July 9, 1949)
(Members of his family often modelled for him.)
Two Computer Guys: Norman Rockwell
www.2computerguys.com