Throughout his prolific career, Norman Rockwell illustrated 323 Saturday Evening Post covers, 51 annual illustrations for the Boy Scouts of America calendar as well as 200 covers of Boys’ Life magazine published by the association, while also providing illustrations for the publications of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn books. Rockwell also had the honor of panting the portraits of four American presidents- Dwight Eisenhower, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Some of Rockwell’s most widely known and recognized works are those of the Four Seasons artwork for the calendars published by an American publisher Brown & Bigelow, which he illustrated for 17 consecutive years. Mostly dismissed as a serious artist by critics during his lifetime, Rockwell’s work was criticized for being overly sentimental and not reflective of the American lifestyle of the current times, however, he did gain sizable attention when turning to more serious subject matter, specifically the issue of segregation of American schools. Suffering from depression, Rockwell moved his family to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where he underwent psychiatric treatment and was told by his therapist that the artist “painted his happiness but did not live it.” Today Norman Rockwell is celebrated as the best representative of 1950s Americana, with a museum housing close to 700 of his works established at Stockbridge in 1969, which is also the home of The Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies, a research center dedicated to the study of American illustration art. Norman Rockwell was born on this day, February 3rd, 1894, in New York City, New York. Pictured here is Norman Rockwell, Expressman, 1924, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York
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