Discount Norman Rockwell Prints, Paintings and Pictures
At Framed-Arts.com, we offer a wide selection of discount Norman Rockwell art prints, paintings and pictures for custom framing, from Rosie the Riveter to the Four Freedoms series. The Norman Rockwell images we feature can be browsed from our custom search page, while this page contains facts about Norman Rockwell’s art and life. Find out more information on the Saturday Evening Post illustrator in the brief Norman Rockwell biography that follows.

A Short Norman Rockwell Biography
Born February 3, 1894, Norman Rockwell was a 20th century American painter and illustrator. In the United States, Rockwell is best known for the cover illustrations he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine for more than forty years. Among the best-known of his works on everyday American life are Rosie the Riveter, Saying Grace (1951), and the Four Freedoms series.

Education
At the age of 16, Rockwell transferred from public high school to the Chase Art School in his hometown, New York City. He also attended the National Academy of Design before eventually ending up at the Art Students League. There, he studied under Thomas Fogarty, George Bridgman, and Frank Vincent Dumond. Rockwell’s early works were produced for a variety of juvenile publications, including Boy Scouts of America publications. His first major breakthrough came at age eighteen when he illustrated his first book, Carl H. Claudy's Tell Me Why: Stories about Mother Nature (1912).

A year later, Rockwell became the art editor for Boys' Life, published by the Boy Scouts of America. As part of the position, which he held for three years, he painted several covers, beginning with his first published magazine cover, Scout at Ship's Wheel, which appeared on the cover of the September 1913 edition of Boys' Life.

The First World War
Early in World War I, Rockwell enlisted in the U.S. Navy. However, as a military artist, he did not see any action during his tour of duty. After his tour, at age 21, he moved to New Rochelle, New York, where he shared a studio with The Saturday Evening Post cartoonist Clyde Forsythe. With Forsythe's assistance, Rockwell submitted his first successful cover painting to the Post in May 1916, Mother's Day Off. He followed this success with Circus Barker and Strongman (June), Gramps at the Plate (August), Redhead Loves Hatty Perkins (September), People in a Theatre Balcony (October) and Man Playing Santa (December). Rockwell’s work was published on the Post cover eight times within the first twelve months of his association with the magazine. Over a total of 47 years, Rockwell would publish 321 original covers for The Saturday Evening Post.

Besides the Post, Rockwell painted covers for other magazines of the day, including The Literary Digest, Leslie's Weekly, The Country Gentleman, Peoples Popular Monthly, Judge, and Life Magazine.

The Second World War
In 1943, during the World War II, Rockwell painted his famous Four Freedoms series. The series, which took seven months to complete and cost Rockwell 15 pounds, was inspired by a Franklin D. Roosevelt speech in which the American president described the four principles for universal rights: Freedom from Want, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, and Freedom from Fear. The Saturday Evening Post published Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings in 1943. The U.S. Treasury Department later promoted war bonds in 16 American cities by exhibiting Rockwell’s original paintings. Rockwell himself considered "Freedom of Speech" the best of the four. The year Rockwell completed the series, a fire destroyed numerous original paintings, props, and costumes in his studio.

Later Career
After World War II, Rockwell spent his winters as artist-in-residence at Otis College of Art and Design, where he occasionally used students as models for his Saturday Evening Post covers. In 1949, Rockwell donated an original Post cover, April Fool, to the school to be raffled off in a library fund raiser.

Later, in 1953, after twenty years of marriage, Rockwell’s wife Mary died unexpectedly. He took time off from his work to grieve. During this break, he and son Thomas produced his autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator, which was published in 1960. The Post printed excerpts from the book in eight consecutive issues, the first of which contained Rockwell's famous Triple Self-Portrait.

Rockwell’s final painting for the Post was published in 1963. For the next 10 years, he painted for Look magazine, where his work focused on civil rights, poverty and space exploration issues. During his long career as an artist, he was commissioned to paint the portraits for Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, as well as those of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jawaharlal Nehru. One of his last commissioned works was a portrait of legendary singer Judy Garland in 1969, shortly before her death.

Rockwell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, the United States of America's highest civilian honor, for "vivid and affectionate portraits of our country." A year later, at age 84, Rockwell died of emphysema in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. A museum that Rockwell helped establish near his home in Stockbridge contains 574 of his original paintings and drawings, and is still open year round.

In 2001, Rockwell's work was exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum .His Breaking Home Ties sold for $15.4 million at a 2006 Sotheby’s auction. And a twelve-city U.S. tour of Rockwell's works is planned for 2008

Norman Rockwell’s Art and Life
We hope this short Norman Rockwell biography has provided insight into Rockwell’s extensive body of work. You can browse our selection of custom discount Norman Rockwell paintings, prints and pictures by visiting our custom search page. Happy print shopping, and don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions.