Norman Rockwell 1894 - 1978

Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Stuart (editor of the Saturday Evening Post; acquired directly from the artist)
By descent in the family to the present owner

The Saturday Evening Post, September 16, 1944, illustrated in color on the cover
Thomas S. Buechner, Norman Rockwell: A Sixty Year Retrospective, New York, 1972, illustrated p. 90
Christopher Finch, Norman Rockwell's America, New York, 1975, no. 259, illustrated p. 203
Mary Moline, Norman Rockwell Encyclopedia: A Chronological Catalogue of the Artist's Work 1910-1978, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1979, illustrated p. 69 (as Willie Gillis' Generations)
Susan E. Meyer, Norman Rockwell's People, New York, 1981, pp. 124-5, illustrated in color
Laurie Norton Moffatt, Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, Stockbridge, Massachussetts, 1986, vol. 1, no. C413, p. 159, illustrated (as Willie Gillis)
Norman Rockwell, Norman Rockwell: My Adventures as an Illustrator, New York, 1988, illustrated p. 326
Jan Cohn, Covers of the Saturday Evening Post: Seventy Years of Outstanding Illustration from America's Favorite Magazine, New York, 1995, illustrated in color p. 196

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By the beginning of the Second World War, Norman Rockwell's depictions of American life for the Saturday Evening Post had become an important centerpiece of popular culture. The Post had circulation approaching four million households, and no artist was featured on its cover more often than Rockwell. As war approached, Rockwell enjoyed a position of unique influence, commanding as he did access to the most popular media outlet of the time.

The announcement of the Selective Service and Training Act of 1940 was the beginning of the draft for World War II, and Rockwell "conceived the idea of a series of Post covers depicting the army experiences of a young civilian, sort of an innocent little fellow who suddenly found himself caught up in a completely strange life" (Norman Rockwell, My Adventures as an Illustrator, Abrams, 1994 ed., p.326).  Given his name by the artist's wife, Willie Gillis was introduced on the cover of the October 4, 1941 Post cradling a care package of food from home under the predatory gaze of his imposing fellow soldiers. Ten Post covers followed, tracking this "average G.I." (modeled by Bob Buck, a local fellow from West Arlington exempt from the draft) through the war and back to a college campus five years later. The series did much to allay the fears of young inductees, and to inspire a sense of duty and patriotism in its audience, and Willie Gillis became a beloved proxy for hundreds of thousands of young men far from their homes and families as confrontation exploded into war.

The last three Willie Gillis covers of the Post presented a unique challenge to Rockwell. Bob Buck had managed to enlist in the Navy, and the artist was left with only a few old photographs to work from. His ninth cover focused on the absent soldier's girlfriend at home, but he had an inspiration for the next, Willie Gillis Family Heritage, which appeared on the cover of the September 16, 1944 issue. "I did Willie and his warlike ancestors, portraits of the Gillis men in uniform from Great-great-grandfather Gillis (War of 1812), Great-grandfather Gillis (Civil War), Grandfather Gillis (Spanish-American War), Willie's father (World War I) to Willie himself, grinning innocently from under his khaki kettle of a helmet. The six portraits were all painted from the same photograph of Bob Buck, but I altered the expressions somewhat.... Beneath the portraits I painted in a row of books with titles like The Gillis Family Genealogy, A History of the United States and the Gillis Family, With Gillis at Valley Forge, Gillis and Lincoln – purely imaginary titles, but I needed an anchor for the bottom of the picture. The cover was very popular.... All the Gillises in America wrote to me asking where they could buy (those books)" (Rockwell, ibid., p. 328).

Rockwell's facility for capturing the essence of everyday American life and the nation's vital yet innocent spirit was not just successful at selling magazines – it made a powerful recruiting tool for the military and for various support efforts, including the sale of war bonds. The Willie Gillis pictures, along with Rosie the Riveter and the Four Freedoms series were instrumental in publicizing these sales, and several of the original canvases were auctioned by the Treasury Department in its Second War Loan Drive during 1943. Rockwell was repeatedly recognized during his lifetime for his contribution to the national identity and the war effort, including a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1977.

Rockwell was born in New York City in 1894, and discovered a natural affinity for drawing at a very young age. He later transferred from high school to the Chase Art School and then on to the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League, where he studied under George Bridgeman. Rockwell gravitated toward illustration, which he viewed as the great, if fading tradition, of Pyle, Abbey, Rackham, Dore, Cruikshank and Remington. Illustrators were "historian(s) with a brush," in a "profession I could be proud of."  Rockwell believed strongly in painting only from life or elaborately planned and staged photographs of "scenes and people I knew something about."  The artist had attempted to enlist in the Navy during World War I, but was initially denied for being underweight. Undeterred, he finally managed to be accepted as a military artist after gorging on bananas and doughnuts, and emerged from the conflict unscathed.

In his pursuit of capturing history, Rockwell became known as something of a perfectionist, rarely satisfied with his own efforts. Yet, he was driven by a compulsion for all viewers to like his work. "I could never be satisfied with just the approval of the critics (and, boy, I've certainly had to be satisfied without it) or a small group of kindred souls, so I have painted pictures... that I knew everyone would understand and like."  Rockwell wrote of the great illustrators that "(their) illustrations of the classics were in themselves classics." Perhaps no more accurate assessment of Norman Rockwell's quintessential American art can be made. In painting the heart and soul of American life, he more than any among his peers became integral to it, and his images of Willie Gillis, Rosie the Riveter and so many average yet extraordinary citizens similarly became part of America's great artistic tradition.