Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of the country's culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over nearly five decades. Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter, The Problem We All Live With, Saying Grace, and the Four Freedoms series. He is also noted for his 64-year relationship with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), during which he produced covers for their publication Boys' Life (now Scout Life), calendars, and other illustrations. These works include popular images that reflect the Scout Oath and Scout Law such as The Scoutmaster, A Scout Is Reverent, and A Guiding Hand.
Rockwell was a prolific artist, producing more than 4,000 original works in his lifetime. Most of his surviving works are in public collections. Rockwell was also commissioned to illustrate more than 40 books, including Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and to paint portraits of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, as well as those of foreign figures, including Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jawaharlal Nehru. His portrait subjects also included Judy Garland. One of his last portraits was of Colonel Sanders in 1973. His annual contributions for the Boy Scouts calendars between 1925 and 1976 (Rockwell was a 1939 recipient of the Silver Buffalo Award, the highest adult award given by the Boy Scouts of America), were only slightly overshadowed by his most popular of calendar works: the "Four Seasons" illustrations for Brown & Bigelow that were published for 17 years beginning in 1947 and reproduced in various styles and sizes since 1964. He created artwork for advertisements for Coca-Cola, Jell-O, General Motors, Scott Tissue, and other companies. Illustrations for booklets, catalogs, posters (particularly movie promotions), sheet music, stamps, playing cards, and murals (including "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "God Bless the Hills", which was completed in 1936 for the Nassau Inn in Princeton, New Jersey) rounded out Rockwell's oeuvre as an illustrator.
Rockwell's work was dismissed by serious art critics in his lifetime. Many of his works appear overly sweet in the opinion of modern critics, especially the Saturday Evening Post covers, which tend toward idealistic or sentimentalized portrayals of American life. This has led to the often deprecatory adjective "Rockwellesque". Consequently, Rockwell is not considered a "serious painter" by some contemporary artists, who regard his work as bourgeois and kitsch. Writer Vladimir Nabokov stated that Rockwell's brilliant technique was put to "banal" use, and wrote in his novel Pnin: "That Dalí is really Norman Rockwell's twin brother kidnapped by gypsies in babyhood." He is called an "illustrator" instead of an artist by some critics, a designation he did not mind, as that was what he called himself.
In his later years, Rockwell began receiving more attention as a painter when he chose more serious subjects such as the series on racism for Look magazine. One example of this more serious work is The Problem We All Live With, which dealt with the issue of school racial integration. The painting depicts Ruby Bridges, flanked by white federal marshals, walking to school past a wall defaced by racist graffiti. This 1964 painting was displayed in the White House when Bridges met with President Barack Obama in 2011.
Norman Rockwell was born on February 3, 1894, in New York City, to Jarvis Waring Rockwell and Anne Mary "Nancy" (née Hill) Rockwell His father was a Presbyterian and his mother was an Episcopalian; two years after their engagement, he converted to the Episcopal faith. Rockwell's earliest American ancestor was John Rockwell (1588–1662), from Somerset, England, who immigrated to colonial North America, probably in 1635, aboard the ship Hopewell and became one of the first settlers of Windsor, Connecticut. Rockwell had one brother, Jarvis Jr., older by a year and a half. Jarvis Sr. was the manager of the New York office of a Philadelphia textile firm, George Wood, Sons & Company, where he spent his entire career.
Legacy
A custodianship of his original paintings and drawings was established with Rockwell's help near his home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the Norman Rockwell Museum still is open today year-round. The museum's collection includes more than 700 original Rockwell paintings, drawings, and studies. The Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies at the Norman Rockwell Museum is a national research institute dedicated to American illustration art.
Rockwell's work was exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2001. Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties sold for $15.4 million at a 2006 Sotheby's auction. A 12-city U.S. tour of Rockwell's works took place in 2008. In 2008, Rockwell was named the official state artist of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The 2013 sale of Saying Grace for $46 million (including buyer's premium) established a new record price for Rockwell. Rockwell's work was exhibited at the Reading Public Museum and the Church History Museum in 2013–2014
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- SERVES
- 4
- COOK TIME
- 20 Min
Macaroni Tuna Skillet is a quick throw-together meal that can come right out of your pantry and taste anything but! Everyone's going to want more of this creamy skillet dinner!
- 1 (7-1/4-ounce) package macaroni and cheese dinner mix
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 3 (6-1/2-ounce) cans tuna, drained and broken into chunks
- 1 (4-ounce) can sliced mushrooms, undrained
- 2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon prepared mustard
- 1 cup (1/2 pint) sour cream
- 2 tablespoons dry white wine
- Cook macaroni from dinner mix according to package directions; drain.
- In a large skillet, combine cooked macaroni, the cheese from the dinner mix, the milk and butter over medium heat.
- Stir in tuna, undrained mushrooms, parsley, paprika, and mustard. Simmer, uncovered, for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Stir in sour cream and wine then heat through and serve.
1936 – Keir Dullea, American actor
1936 – Ruta Lee, Canadian actress
1944 – Meredith MacRae, American actress (d. 2000)
1958 – Michael Lopez-Alegria, astronaut
1964 – Wynonna Judd, American country singer
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