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Rockwell's Four Freedoms
In the spring of 1942, Norman Rockwell was working on a piece commissioned by the Ordnance Department of the US Army, a painting of a machine gunner in need of ammunition.
Posters featuring Let's Give Him Enough and On Time were distributed to munitions factories throughout the country to encourage production. But Rockwell wanted to do more for the war effort and determined to illustrate Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. Finding new ideas for paintings never came easily, but this was a greater challenge.
While considering his options, Rockwell by chance attended a town meeting where a Vermont neighbor was met with respect when he rose among his neighbors to voice an unpopular view. That night he awoke with the realization that he could best paint the Four Freedoms from the perspective of his own experiences, using everyday scenes as his guide. Rockwell made some sketches and, accompanied by fellow Saturday Evening Post artist Mead Schaeffer, went to Washington to propose his ideas.
The timing was wrong -- the Ordnance Department did not have the resources for another commission. Disappointed, Rockwell stopped at Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia on his way home and presented his concept to Post editor Ben Hibbs. Hibbs immediately made plans to publish the illustrations, giving Rockwell permission to interrupt his cover work for a period of three months. He "got a bad case of stage fright," though, and it was more than two months before he even began the project. "It was so darned high-blown," Rockwell said. "Somehow I just couldn't get my mind around it." Despite his early misgivings, the paintings were a phenomenal success. After their publication, the magazine received thousands of requests for reprints, and in May 1943, the Post and the US Department of the Treasury announced a joint campaign to sell war bonds and stamps capitalizing on Rockwell's vision. |