Norman Percevel Rockwell was born on February 3, 1894, the second son of Nancy and Waring Rockwell. When Norman in his later teens he was given small illustration jobs, but his major breakthrough came in 1912 with his first book illustration for C.H. Claudy's Tell Me Why: Stories about Mother Nature. By 1913 Rockwell was art editor for Boy's Life at the age of only 19years old. While Rockwell was considered a modest person, and a retiring man he often impressed himself on America's collective imagination by his stubborn likeness to the good old values. He had a ability to relate these values to the events that made him a changing special person.
Norman shared a service that America could depend on. This is very clear in more than 4,000 illustrations that were completed throughout his 47 year career. Although he became well know with publishing 332 covers of the Saturday Evening Post. It was said that the Post could increase sales by selling the 250,000 copies when an issue had a cover by Rockwell. Norman could get the point across in one of his paintings. .
Rockwell's impact on popular culture and his influence on generations of American illustrators was very large. Rockwell worked with artists such as Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth, Rockwell set the standard for commercial artists who used narrative realism to illustrate books, magazines, and advertisements from the 1920s to the 1950s. A seminal figure in the evolution of American illustration, his work spawned a shift by the next generation of illustrators and designers, who embraced a modernist approach. .
