Founders & Guardians - Norman Rockwell

© 2026, M. R. McGough, LLC

“Commonplaces never become tiresome.  It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative.”  - (Norman Rockwell)

Norman Perceval Rockwell was born on Saturday, February 3, 1894 in New York City. He was the youngest of two sons born to Jarvis and Anne Mary Rockwell. At age 14, while still in high school, he studied at The New York School of Art. Two years later he left high school to begin his full-time study of art at The National Academy of Design. He later attended The Art Students League in New York.  From an early age, he was focused on what would be his life’s work.

During his early career, Rockwell found plenty of work, including a salaried position as an illustrator and art editor for Boys Life, the publication of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). When he began working for The Saturday Evening Post in 1916, he left his position with BSA, but their relationship continued. 

  Norman Rockwell married Irene O’Connell in 1916.  The following year, the couple moved to New Rochelle, NY. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1930. That same year he remarried. He and Mary Barstow, a school teacher, were married for 29 years. They had three sons.

In 1939, the Rockwells moved to Arlington, VT. Life in this small town, was the inspiration of many of Norman’s most notable illustrations. In 1953, they relocated to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, another model of small-town America. Following the death of his second wife, Rockwell married again in 1961. He and Mary Punderton were among the most popular and respected couples in Stockbridge.   

Rockwell’s 47-year relationship withThe Post began with the first of his more than 320 covers titled, Boy with Baby Carriage.  It appeared on May 20, 1916 edition. Through those illustrations, he offered readers a running visual account of life in everyday America for nearly five decades. Although his work was dismissed by critics from certain segments of the art community, its popularity among the masses was enormous. 

   Although he saw no action during WWI, Rockwell served as a military artist.  In 1943, during the height of WWII, he completed what may be his most enduring work and a major contribution to the war effort. His Four Freedoms series vividly illustrated to a world at war four universal freedoms described by President Roosevelt in his 1941 State of the Union Address. The paintings appeared in consecutive issues of The Post with essays by Post writers.  The works titled, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear, were taken on a nationwide tour sponsored by The Post and the U.S. Treasury. As a result of that tour, more than $130 million was raised for the war effort, through the sale of war bonds. 

In 1963, Rockwell ended his working relationship with The Post. His final cover appeared on the December 14th edition.  It was a portrait of former President John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated the previous month.  The following year, Look magazine began publishing his work.

From this new venue at Look, 68-year-old Norman Rockwell’s paintings illustrated core realities of the United States in the 1960s, including poverty, civil rights and the space age.  One of his most graphic and enduring works is The Problem We All Live With. It was the centerfold of the January 14, 1964 edition of Look.  Ten years after the Supreme Court declared segregated schools to be unconstitutional, the painting shows six-year-old Ruby Bridges being escorted to school by federal marshals. Rockwell had shined a light on the reality that Americans can either be part of the problem or part of the solution.

His last commission, completed for BSA, was titled, The Spirit of 1976.  Over a span of nearly 64 years, Norman Rockwell provided the Boy Scouts with more than 470 illustrations, for their magazines, calendars, and other publications. This was the longest professional association of his storied career. Although Rockwell was not a boy scout, in 1938, he was awarded the Silver Buffalo, BSA’s highest award for service to Scouting.

President Gerald Ford, himself an Eagle Scout, awarded Rockwell the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. Ford said Rockwell’s  “. . . vivid and affectionate portraits of our country and ourselves have become a beloved part of the American tradition.”  The following year, at the age of 84, Norman Perceval Rockwell passed away from emphysema. In 2008, he was posthumously named the Official State Artist of Massachusetts. 

Rockwell’s contributions to the American Dream are best found in his optimistically uncomplicated chronicling of commonplaces. His curiosity and appreciation for them powered his idealized portrayal of American life. Through the administrations of eleven presidents, his picturesque narration of America life offered recurring glimpses of who we were, who we should be, and when we falter, who we could become again. “The Story Teller of America” described his life’s work this way. “I showed the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed.”

Picture Caption:  Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon occurred on July 20, 1969.  Rockwell’s painting Man’s First Step on the Moon was commissioned by Look magazine. It was completed in 1966 and published in 1967, in anticipation of NASA’s imminent lunar landing.