Almanac: Norman Rockwell
(CBS News) And now a page from our Sunday Morning Almanac: February 3rd, 1894, 119 years ago today . . . the day artist Norman Rockwell was born in New York City.
His magazine illustrations brought football into American homes long before TV ever did -- and it wasn't just football.
For 47 years beginning in 1916, Norman Rockwell painted 323 covers for the weekly Saturday Evening Post, portraying everyday American life with affection and good humor -- and sometimes with serious intent.
His iconic World War II paintings of President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms -- Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear -- helped raise some $130 million for the war effort.
Rockwell embraced small-town life, moving first to Arlington, Vt., and then to Stockbridge, Mass., where he painted the town's Main Street.
And it was with a night-time drive through Stockbridge that Edward R. Murrow and the CBS program "Person-To-Person" began a visit to Rockwell's home.
Rockwell described his method of working from photographs of his small-town subjects. "I always use my neighbors," he told Murrow. "I very seldom use professional models."
After moving to Look magazine in 1963, Rockwell took on more controversial subjects, as in "The Problem We All Live With," a portrayal of six-year-old Ruby Bridges surrounded by federal marshals as she braved a hostile crowd to attend a previously-segregated school in New Orleans.
40 years after, Ruby Bridges fights on
Rockwell original found behind wall
Lucas and Spielberg on Norman Rockwell
Norman Rockwell died in 1978 at the age of 84, after leaving his collection to what is now the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge -- a destination for Rockwell lovers to this day.
For more info:
- Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Mass.
- saturdayeveningpost.com