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Norman Rockwell was a famous American painter and illustrator. Many people consider him as the greatest American artist of all time. His works often illustrated ordinary and yet humorous scenes of daily life. They also included portraits of American Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

Norman Rockwell was born in New York City on February 3, 1894. When he was a child, Norman sang in the church choir and spent his summers with his family at farms in the country. Country life is a recurrent theme in Norman's paintings.

Rockwell enjoyed drawing at an early age and he decided very soon that he wanted to be an artist. So, at the age of 14, he attended classes at the New York School of Art. He left high school when he was 16 to study art at the National Academy of Design and then at the Art Students League.
While he was still a teenager, Norman became the art director of "Boys' Life", the Boy Scouts of America's publication.

Rockwell, his two brothers, and his parents moved to New Rochelle, New York, when Norman was 21 years old. There, Norman opened a studio and did artwork for several magazines. When he was 22, he painted his first cover for "The Saturday Evening Post". Norman considered this magazine as "the greatest show window in America." During the next 47 years, he painted over 300 covers for "The Post". Some of Norman’s illustrations were also used during WWII to collect money.

In 1916 Norman Rockwell married Irene O'Connor, a schoolteacher, but the couple divorced in 1930. That same year, Norman Rockwell married Mary Barstow, a school teacher. They had three sons. In 1939 the family moved to a farm in Arlington, Vermont.
In 1943, Norman’s studio was destroyed by fire. Norman lost many paintings and his collection of historical costumes.

Norman and his family moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1953. In the summer of 1959, his wife Mary died of a heart attack. Norman took some time off and wrote his autobiography.
In 1961 he married Molly Punderson, a retired schoolteacher.

Rockwell spent the last 10 years of his career painting about civil rights, poverty, and space exploration for "Look" magazine.
In 1977, Norman Rockwell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honour. He died at his home in Stockbridge on November 8, 1978, when he was 84.