The famous artist Norman Rockwell painted hundreds of magazine covers during his lifetime. But he didn’t just paint life, he lived it. He knew success and failure, joy and sorrow—just as we all do.
Early in his career, he learned to keep trying, even when he didn’t feel like he could. Once, when the Saturday Evening Post rejected a cover illustration he had painted, he felt like giving up. But he remembered something he read in a book: “If you fall on your face, don’t lie there and moan, get up.”
So he did just that. He went directly to the barbershop, climbed into a chair, and said to the barber, “Give me everything you’ve got.” After a shave, a haircut, a shoeshine, and whatever else was offered, he rose from the chair a new man. He walked briskly, chin up and chest out, to the offices of another magazine, where he sold the painting. The next morning he started a new cover for the Saturday Evening Post.¹
He would go on to paint more than 300 covers for the Post, each portraying commonplace life and lasting values. He told stories with his brush and paint that have influenced generations. His painting of daily life could bring a tear, a smile, and a comforting reassurance that we all have common hopes, dreams, and experiences.
Norman Rockwell’s autobiography ends with these words:
“I get up early every morning. I’m at work by eight. . . . I realized a long time ago that I’ll never be as good as Rembrandt.
“I think my work is improving. I start each picture with the same high hopes, and if I never seem able to fulfill them I still try my darnedest.
“. . . Somebody once asked Picasso, ‘Of all the pictures you’ve done, which is your favorite?’ ‘The next one,’ he replied.”²
Norman Rockwell died at age 84 with an unfinished painting on his easel.
Program #4046
¹See Norman Rockwell: My Adventures as an Illustrator (1960), 221.
²My Adventures as an Illustrator, 436.