Born Feb. 3, 1894
Died Nov. 8, 1978

Norman Rockwell is known for his timeless art and illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine for more than fourty years. His last painting for the Post was in 1963, which marked the end of his publishing relationship with the magazine which included 322 cover paintings. He produced over 4,000 orginal works in his lifetime. He was also commissioned to illustrate over 40 books, Boy Scouts' calendars, his most popular calendars the "Four Seasons" which were published for 17 years, booklets, catalogs, posters ( particularly movie promo's ) , stamps, playing cards, murals, sheet music. This pretty much rounded out his career as an illustrator.

Our tax accountant used to send out Norman Rockwell calendars at the beginning of each year. I enjoyed looking at the pictures. The ones I enjoy most are the Christmas illustrations. I went online and found images...many of them...but didn't want to post many of them. I was lucky enough to find this video on You Tube which has some of his timeless Christmas illustrations. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I did.




Another video from You Tube I found interesting is about a small town in Stockbridge, Mass. Rockwell used this town as a setting for his painting of an idyllic American Christmas. Each year this town pays tribute to him by recreating his painting.



I also found Norman Rockwell's Christmas Book: revised and updated [ Hardcover] on Amazon. I'm going to order this one! It features his art, eight ready to frame limited-edition prints, poems and stories from writers such as Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Hans Christian Andersen, and Lewis Carroll. It also includes Christmas Carol music & lyrics, and Christmas dinner recipes. I may order two of them, one for myself and one for a friend of mine for Christmas. I think she will enjoy it as much as I will!

I may only be posting once a month between now and October. It just depends on whether or not I have something to post about! Christmas only comes once a year and sometimes I really have to put some thought into what topic I want to post about! I think there is only so much you can say about organizing and traditions, etc. without it becoming a little dull. I certainly don't want my posts to become dull and bore you! So, I'll be thinking about some topics of interest....hopefully! :]

Related articles

• Norman Rockwell paintings (telegraph.co.uk)
• An American life (bbc.co.uk)
• Exhibitions: Rockwell's Americana art on show in London (reuters.com)