October 22, 1927 Norman Rockwell

Saturday Evening Post for 5 cents dated October 22, 1927. The cover is 10.5 x 13.5 inches and fits nicely matted in a 16 x 20 inch frame. My Mother picked up this Norman Rockwell magazine cover years ago and it has been passed on to me. If you do the math, last month this magazine cover was 85 years old! Amazing! There's a lot to see in the picture if you look closely. Time seemed much simpler back then when one could sit by the fireplace drinking a cup of tea.

Norman Rockwell was born in 1894 on Manhattan's Upper West Side to a family of modest means; his father, an avid draftsman, worked in the textile business, and his mother was the daughter of a professional artist. Rockwell sold his first two cover ideas to The Saturday Evening Post in 1916, beginning a forty-seven year relationship that is the centerpiece of his career.

An artist or a photographer? Rockwell used live models for all his work and could not paint without them. As the hours passed, the expression of a model would sag or freeze thus causing a problem for the artist. To overcome this limitation of "live models" Rockwell used photography to capture the image first before creating his illustrations. His first extensive use of photography began in 1935 when he was commissioned to illustrate a new edition of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer.

To read more about Norman Rockwell and his photography see the book entitled Norman Rockwell Behind the Camera.