Norman Rockwell's Work

Norman Rockwell got his first commission at the age of 15 and was hired as the art director of Boys' Life (the official publication of the Boy Scouts of America) while still being a teenager.

His family moved to another area in New York, where Norman set up a studio with a fellow colleague and started selling his work to magazines. It was also then that he was engaged by The Saturday Evening Post to do covers for their magazine. Norman Rockwell was 22 years old at that time and his work for The Saturday Evening Post would last for another 47 years.

In 1943 Norman's work called the Four Freedoms, which was based on a speech by President Franklin Roosevelt’s address to Congress in 1941, was an enormous success. In the same year however his studio was destroyed in a fire and Norman lost many paintings, props and his collection of historic costumes.

Norman's field of work was quite broad. He designed stamps for the Postal Service, posters for the Treasury Department, the military, and Hollywood movies. He illustrated Sears mail-order catalogs, Hallmark greeting cards and books such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He also painted several Presidents and other celebrities during his career.

After his wife's death in 1960 Rockwell, with the help of his son Thomas, wrote and published his autobiography 'My Adventures as an Illustrator' and The Saturday Evening Post published several excerpts of it. In 1963 however, Norman ended his work for the Saturday Evening Post and started working for Look magazine. This job would last for another 10 years.

Norman Rockwell established a trust in 1973. He wanted to preserve his works of art by placing them in the custodianship of the Old Corner House Stockbridge Historical Society which later became the Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge. In 1977 Norman added his studio and all it contained to the trust as well.

Even though the media was not very fond of Norman Rockwell's work, it touched the public's hearts and was well liked and appreciated by many. His art can be found and admired in museums and if you like to own a print of his work, just take a look in the stores. :-)