The mid-1940s through the 1950s marked the period of Rockwell’s most important paintings, when he transcended pure illustration without relinquishing a clearly understood, often humorous narrative. The transformation was apparent in the paintings he made for the Saturday Evening Post covers beginning around the mid-1940s. The change was encouraged by a new layout of the cover that separated the title from the illustration and the appointment of Ken Stuart as art editor in 1944. Stuart wanted the covers to be portraits of a nation in change. The subject of this painting could not have been more topical, since the general public only started purchasing televisions during the late 1940s.
During the decade Rockwell increasingly used photographs in his preparatory work so that he could pay more attention to the setting, rather than the figures, as he had earlier. Consequently a new concern for architectural subjects, seen most often in detailed interiors, appeared in his art. He depicted architectural exteriors less frequently. By setting The New Television Set on the roof of a house, Rockwell used architecture not only to structure the composition but also to convey the contrast of the old, the house, with the new, the television. The scene epitomizes the rapid modernization of America, for the house was one of many large Victorian structures characteristic of the district around Adams Street in Los Angeles, where it was painted.
Rockwell’s association with Los Angeles was long and close, beginning in 1930, when he met his wife, Mary Barstow, on his first trip to the city. During the 1940s he wintered here and was artist-in-residence at Otis Art Institute (Los Angeles County Art Institute). He became friendly with his students and asked some of them to serve as his models. For The New Television Set Robert H. Horton, at the time an architecture student, posed as the television serviceman, and Jack Farman, another student, served as the model for the elderly customer.
The painting was reproduced on the cover of the November 5, 1949, issue of the Saturday Evening Post. Rockwell presented the painting to Ned Crowell, a close friend who was West Coast district manager for the Curtis Publishing Company, among whose many publications was the Saturday Evening Post.
