2nd Saturday Evening Post cover- 6/13/1913

Circus Strong Man

Norman Rockwells second Saturday Evening Post cover appeared just 2 weeks after his first. He had sold both the first and second cover to the Post for $75.00 each, which was a huge amount of money in that time. Before working with The Saturday Evening Post, Rockwells monthly wages as "art director" and illustrator for Boys' Life magazine was $50.00 per month. In this picture Norman Rockwell manages to make the view feel as though they are part of the "scene", as if they were a participant, and not merely an observer.

Eugene Sandow, the "Strong Man", was a German turn of the century, physical culturist who appeared at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Billy Paine, the boy who poses for Sandow, was one of Rockwell's favorites. Billy Paine died at age 13 from doing a stunt in a second story window. Norman Rockwell used him in 15 Post covers and said "He was the best kid model I ever used".

The use of live models was difficult, especially in children and animals. Holding a pose was difficult enough, but trying to keep an expression was near impossible. Norman Rockwell sometimes resorted to giving feline models a smell of ether to create the appearence of an enduring lethargy.

May 20, 1916- Rockwells First Saturday Evening Post Cover

"The Baby Carriage"

Norman Rockwell's first Saturday Evening Post cover was different from that of other Post artists. For example, Rockwell used real people as models, he did not just concoct a "situation". Rockwell took much of what he learned from his beloved teacher George Bridgman from the Art Students League. Bridgman wrote a book titled "The Human Machine" which was an illustrated treatise on the musles and motions of the body. Norman Rockwell poured over this book in order to understand the the motor cause and effect. You can notice in this cover that the figures move naturally. The baby-sitter pushes against the carriage with proper displacement. All the boys "fit" into the composition without appearing to be "squeezed" in, and Rockwell is pictorially aware of the post requirements of its logo, parallel bars and bottom cover lines.

The Post was done in duotone, only in two colors, red and black until 1926, which is when Rockwell painted the first color cover. Duotone challenged the artists to capture the magazine buyers eye with red to black, and then lead the eye through graduations of emotion and tone, which was in fact restricted by using just the two colors. In this cover the overstating of facial expressions display a sense of humor based on convincing emotions which is more than American magazines has yet witnessed.