Norman Rockwell

Personal

Vocation

Family

American illustrator famous for his portraits of American life. Born to a businessman and his wife, Norman was sketching from the time he was young. By age 17 he had produced illustrations for published children's books. He became a free-lancer and at age 22 sold his first cover to Saturday Evening Post, published on May 20, 1916. The highly-circulated magazine and its readers could not get enough of him and he would go on to produce several hundred more covers. He became a well-paid artist whose portraits of American family life were realistic and romanticized both,many of them nostalgic for simpler times. In addition to his magazine illustrations he provided drawings for editions of Mark Twain's beloved coming-of-age stories about Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. His "Four Freedoms" posters created during WWII, raised nearly $140 million through sales of war bonds. He married Irene O'Connor in 1916 but they divorced in 1928. On April 17, 1930 he married Mary Barstow. In 1953 with their three sons, the couple moved to Stockbridge, MA. Mary died in 1959. A year later he published his autobiography "My Adventures as an Illustrator." On October 25, 1961, he married again, this time to Mary Punderson (nicknamed Molly). In 1963 he left the Saturday Evening Post and joined the creative staff of "Look" magazine. His illustrations kept up with the times and he documented the Civil Rights movement in some of his pieces. President Gerald Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. He died the following year, on November 8, 1978, in Stockbridge, MA. Rockwell was 84.