Norman Rockwell 1894 – 1978

Biography

Norman Rockwell painted America the way America wanted to see itself — and, at his best, the way it really was. For nearly five decades his covers for The Saturday Evening Post turned small-town life into national myth: the Four Freedoms series, Rosie the Riveter, Saying Grace, and, late in his career, the searing civil-rights image The Problem We All Live With. He also spent 64 years illustrating for the Boy Scouts. He died of pulmonary emphysema on November 8, 1978, at 84, and is buried at Stockbridge Cemetery in Massachusetts, the town he made famous one cover at a time. He painted his first Post cover in 1916 and his last in 1963, a run no other illustrator has matched. He moved to Stockbridge in 1957 and spent his final two decades painting its streets and neighbors, and his studio there is now a museum drawing visitors from around the world.