The Four Freedoms are probably the most ambitious and serious work by Rockwell. New York-born and trained, he became the artist of small-town America, best known for the 322 covers he painted for the Saturday Evening Post between 1916 and 1963, some of which were also produced as posters. A supreme draftsman, his unique ability to give visual expression to the American Dream was also employed in major advertising campaigns, including that of the U.S. Government for support of the War Effort. It was FDR who distilled the causes for which we were fighting into Four Freedoms. Only Rockwell could have represented such big ideas in his homey, folksy way without over-sentimentalizing or trivializing them. He undertook the paintings on his own initiative. It was only after he had failed to interest the government in them and they had been published in the Saturday Evening Post that the government saw their potential and used them in poster campaigns for both the war effort in general, and specifically War Bonds. Not only were they a popular success, but FDR himself expressed his happiness with them. The original paintings are in the Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. This is the larger format version of the series. (4)
U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
literature: Rockwell’s America, p. 204-207; Rockwell Illustrator, p. 134-149; American Posters, p. 24; PAI-LXXXV, 128
This work will ship from Lambertville, New Jersey.
