Norman Rockwell

Norman Percevel Rockwell

• Born February 3, 1894 in New York, NY USA
• Died November 8, 1978 in Stockbridge, MA USA

Biographical Information

Norman Rockwell was a painter and illustrator who at one time was the most famous living artists in the United States. He is most famous for his illustrations depicting stories and incidents, many of them published in high-circulation magazines. In particular, his paintings often graced the front page of the Saturday Evening Post, one of the most popular magazines in the country in the 1940s and 1950s.

Rockwell depicted a number of contemporary cultural phenomena, including baseball. While he was not particularly interested in famous players or in the action on the field, he painted action taking place on the sidelines, or in the locker rooms, often with a deliberate nostalgic flavor. One of his most famous works is entitled "Three Umpires"; it was features as the cover illustration for the April 23, 1949 issue of the Saturday Evening Post; like most of his drawings, its presence on the cover was not related to any of that issue's content. The picture depicts three umpires (Beans Reardon, Lou Jorda and Larry Goetz) confering about the presence of threatening skies and on whether to call a game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates at Ebbets Field; coaches from both teams are also identifiable (Clyde Sukeforth and Billy Meyer), as well as some generic Pirates players in the background. The original of the picture is now in the collection of the Hall of Fame, and reproductions appear very frequently.

While Rockwell was very famous and well-loved, his work has not found its way into many traditional art museums, as it is considered to be basically illustrative. However, after his death, the Norman Rockwell Museum was established in Stockbridge, MA, where he worked during the last decades of his life, and it is still a going concern.

Further Reading

• Ron Backer: "Norman Rockwell's The Three Umpires", Baseball Research Journal, SABR, Vol. 52, Nr. 2 (Fall 2023), pp. 5-11.
• Larry Gerlach: "Norman Rockwell and Baseball Images of the National Pastime", Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Fall 2014, p. 49.