Norman Rockwell was born in New York City, but his
family would
spend summers on the farm. He was not athletic and could not play ball
as well as his brother. All he could really do well was draw pictures,
and he spent a lot of time drawing. His parents saw he had talent and
arranged for him to take art lessons. Every Saturday he would travel
two hours by trolley and subway to get to the art school.
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He dropped out of high school to attend an art
academy. In 1912 he
illustrated a handbook for the Boy Scouts and drew the pictures for Boy
Scout calendars. He also drew illustrations for advertisements such as
insurance, toothpaste, etc.
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Later he submitted drawings for the cover of the Saturday
Evening Post, a popular magazine. The acceptance of these
illustrations was the beginning of a long career with the Post.
He painted pictures that told stories. Most of them were humorous
stories that people really enjoyed.
His pictures were so popular that when the Post would feature a
Rockwell painting on the cover, they would print 250,000 extra copies
just to meet the public demand.
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The featured work on this page is " The Golden
Rule" .
He wanted to show that "doing unto others as you would have them do
unto you" was something on which people of most religions could agree,
regardless of their creed or belief. In the picture we see people of
many nationalities.
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Norman Rockwell used live models for his paintings. He
would show them
the kind of expression he wanted them to exhibit. Then he would pay
them two dollars for posing for him. (He paid his sons one dollar for
posing.) As he began to get older, he would hire a photographer to take
a picture of people in the various poses, and then he would paint the
illustration while looking at the photograph.
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One time another magazine offered him twice as much
money as he was making at the Saturday Evening Post, but he
turned them down. Because of his loyalty, the Post also doubled
his salary.
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In 1920 America was at war, so Rockwell enlisted in
the Navy. His
duties consisted of painting portraits of navy officers, sailors, and
officer's wives. He was soon discharged.
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His first marriage ended in divorce, but in 1930 he
married Mary Rhodes Barstow and they raised three sons.
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In 1942 he painted four pictures to illustrate The Four Freedoms; Freedom of Speech, which shows a man standing
and speaking up in a town hall meeting, Freedom To Worship which shows people praying, Freedom
From Want showing a family around a Thanksgiving table, and Freedom From Fear
which illustrated a couple tucking their children into bed at night. He
took them to different government agencies, but they all rejected them.
He took them to the Saturday Evening Post where they were
printed and became some of his most famous illustrations.
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In his later years the pictures he drew were about
national events such
as the civil rights movement, and fewer were about the humorous side of
life. He illustrated the young black girl who was the first to attend
an all-white school. It was called "The Problem We All Live With" .
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After his wife Mary died, he married Molly Punderson,
a retired teacher. They were married for seventeen years.
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He once said he wanted to be painting when he died.
Actually, he
painted his last picture six months before his death, and it was an
unfinished painting on his easel.
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If you visit Vermont be sure to stop by the Norman Rockwell
Museum and see some of his illustrations.
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