Norman Percevel Rockwell was America’s most beloved illustrator, renowned for his all-American, folksy images that appeared on the covers of the Saturday Evening Post. As a teenager he attended the Chase School and the Art Students League, studying with George Bridgman (1864-1943). In 1911 he began his career as a book illustrator for Condé Nast, and during his early years illustrations for children’s magazines constituted his greatest source of income. His work appeared in Youth’s Companion, Everyland, and Boy’s Life, and he served as art director for the last named. In 1916 he began a forty-seven-year association with the Saturday Evening Post, and his covers for that magazine brought him a national reputation. Rockwell also received commissions from other popular magazines such as judge, Ladies’ Home Journal, Life, and McCall’s. In 1923 he visited France and as a result briefly flirted with modernism. He soon returned to the representational, story-telling compositions on which his reputation was established. He painted a few murals - The Land of Enchantment, 1934, for the New Rochelle (N.Y.) Public Library and Yankee Doodle, 1935, for a New Jersey tavern-and designed posters for commercial enterprises, the War Department, and the motion-picture industry.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arthur L. Guptill, Norman Rockwell: Illustrator (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1946), with biographical note by Jack Alexander, illustrated catalogue of Post covers, discussion of procedures § Norman Rockwell, Norman Rockwell: My Adventures as an Illustrator (Garden City, NJ.: Doubleday, 1960) § Thomas S. Buechner, Norman Rockwell: Artist and Illustrator (New York: Harry N. Abrams, [c. 1970]) § Donald Walton, A Rockwell Portrait (Kansas City; Kans.: Sheed Andrews & McMeel, 1978) § Mary Moline, Norman Rockwell Encyclopedia: A Chronological Catalog of the Artist’s Work, 1910-1978 (Indianapolis: Curtis, 1979), with chronology.