Norman Rockwell

This self-caricature is one of a series of vignettes Norman Rockwell created for his 1960 autobiography My Adventures as an Illustrator, here introducing the third chapter, “I Meet the Body Beautiful.” The image speaks to the influence of his earliest teachers, particularly George Bridgman at the Art Students League in New York. Bridgman underwent rigorous training in anatomy and figure drawing at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and emphasized these fundamental skills throughout his forty-five-year teaching career in New York.

Born in New York, Norman Rockwell became the best-known American illustrator of the 20th century primarily because of the 322 covers he designed for the Saturday Evening Post between 1916 and 1963. His work is dominated by images of small-town life in America. In 1960, he authored an autobiography. This simple graphite drawing appeared as a heading for the third chapter, “I Meet the Body Beautiful,” in which Rockwell recounts his discovery of girls simultaneously with his burgeoning interest in drawing at the age of ten.