Norman Rockwell
American Painter
1894-1978
"Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed."
- Norman Rockwell
Born in New York City in 1894, Norman Rockwell always wanted to be an artist. At the age of fourteen, he enrolled in art classes in New York. At the age of 16 he left high school to study art.
Rockwell found success early. While still in his teens, he was hired as art director of Boys' Life, for the Boy Scouts of America. In 1916, the 22-year-old Rockwell painted his first cover for a magazine called The Saturday Evening Post. Over the next 47 years, another 321 Rockwell covers would appear on the cover of the Post.
In 1930, he married Mary Barstow, a school teacher, and they had three sons. They moved to Arlington, Vermont in 1939, where his work began to reflect small-town American life.
In 1943, inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's address to Congress during World War II, Rockwell painted the Four Freedoms paintings: Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear. They were printed on four consecutive issues of The Saturday Evening Post. These popular paintings toured the United States and raised more than $130 million for the war effort.
In 1953, the Rockwell family moved from Arlington, Vermont, to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Six years later, Mary Barstow Rockwell died unexpectedly. In 1961, Rockwell married Molly Punderson, a retired teacher. In 1973, Rockwell arranged to preserve his artistic legacy by placing his works in the care of the Old Corner House Stockbridge, Massachusetts Historical Society, which later became the Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge. In 1977, Rockwell received the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for his "vivid and affectionate portraits of our country." He died at his home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts on November 8, 1978, at the age of 84.
The painting above is the "Triple Self Portrait" by Norman Rockwell. It is on display at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA.