N orman Rockwell

            Rockwell's illustrations almost defined America in the middle part of the 20th century; they certainly helped define Scouting. His career spanned nearly the whole history of the Boy Scouts to date, encompassing an age during which both America and the Boy Scouts grew immensely, a period, as Rockwell wrote, "when America believed in itself. I was happy to be painting it." The artist died in 1978 at the age of 84.
             In the sixties, Rockwell's focus broadened to include many more minority and foreign Scouts. His calendar paintings for the world jamboree years of 1963 and 1967 both depicted Scouts of various nations joyously united.
             "The common places of America are to me the richest subjects in art," he once said. "Boys batting flies on vacant lots; girls playing jacks on front steps; old men plodding home at twilight; all these arouse feelings in me.".
             In his more than 2,000 artworks Norman Rockwell created a pictorial history of his times and illuminated the lives of his fellow Americans with gifted warmth and insight. .
             He had the unique capacity to communicate with people of all ages, and his work has been reproduced more often than Michelangelo, Picasso and Rembrandt put together. .
             Marshall Stoltz, curator of The Norman Rockwell Museum, observes that Rockwell "was as much at ease painting kings, statesmen and movie stars as he was painting freckled-faced boys, pigtailed girls, kindly old people and love able dogs." .
             Rockwell gained national prominence as an illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look, Boy's Life, Boy Scout calendars, and major advertisers, all of which brought him close to the hearts of people the world over," Stoltz said.
             Rockwell's first commission was a set of four Christmas cards when he was sixteen years old. He illustrated his first book, Tell Me Why Stories, the next year, and was art director for the magazine Boys' Life by the time he was nineteen. Many of his early works involved boy scouts.