Scouting, Volume 66, Number 4, September 1978 Page: 42
106, [16] p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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immaculate no matter what tribulations he
was undergoing. The badges and insignia
must be just right, the neckerchief tied
correctly, the Scout hat slanted at the
proper angle.
By the time Rockwell brought in the
finished picture, he was sometimes ap-
proaching a slow boil. West would call in a
dozen staff members and ask, "What's
wrong with it?"
With that kind of question, they always
found something wrong. "Shouldn't the
father be a bit older?" "Isn't the boy to the
left too pudgy?" "Wouldn't a red necker-
chief be better?"
Fortunately, Norman Rockwell was not
a temperamental artist. He let them talk.
By the time the session ended, there had
been so many contradictory suggestions
that opinion had come full circle and the
painting was accepted with enthusiasm.
Norman Rockwell's association with
Scouting did not begin with his first
calendar painting in 1925. It started in the
fall of 1912 when, as an 18-year-old art
student, he walked into the New York City
office of Boys' Life, showed his meager
portfolio, and walked out with commis-
sions to illustrate a story in the fledgling
magazine plus The Boy Scout's Hike Book,
written by the editor, Edward Cave.
The editor was pleased with the results,
and Norman Rockwell was soon installed
as Boys' Life's first staff artist at a salary of
$50 a month. The job included producing
a cover almost every month and illustrat-
ing two or three stories for each issue. In
his first year, the busy young illustrator
did 101 oil paintings, charcoals, and pen-
and-ink vignettes for the magazine.
At the same time, Rockwell was doing
illustrations for other juvenile magazines
and several books. He continued as Boys'
Life's chief illustrator and de facto art
editor until early 1916, by which time his
salary had risen to $75 a month.
In March 1916, his last piece of artwork
for Scouting—for the time being—
appeared in Boys' Life. Norman Rockwell
was on his way to greater glory, for in that
month he got his first commissions for
covers from The Saturday Evening Post,
the most prestigious magazine of that era.
His apprenticeship on Boys' Life laid
the foundation for his later success. His
growth as an artist during his short tenure
was astonishing. His human figures came
alive, his compositions became more
imaginative, his ideas more clearly ex-
pressed, his details more exact—almost
photographic—and his sense of the comic
apparent. All the trademarks that were to
make him the premier illustrator of his
time were developing.
His determination to succeed was
evident, too. On the top of his easel he
painted "100%" in gold. When a friend
asked what it meant, he replied, "That's
what Norman expects of Norman."
During his early years as an illustrator,
he used live models for his human figures.
(In the mid-Thirties, with the development
of candid photography, he switched
reluctantly to using photographs.)
Sometimes his models were friends,
neighbors, or his own sons; more often
they were professional models. Occasion-
ally he would haunt the streets for days,
looking for a particularly expressive face.
His mania for absolute fidelity to detail
meant that his models had to pose five or
six hours a day for three to four days. This
could be troublesome, especially with the
children who were often the focal points of
his paintings for Scouting and the Post.
In his autobiography. Rockwell tells
how he solved the problem of restless
young models. At the beginning of each
modeling session, he placed a stack of
nickels on a table. After 25 minutes, he
shifted five of the nickels to the other side
of the table, saying. "That's your pile."
The kids liked that system. Rockwell
remembered. "I'd learned previously that
they wanted cash; checks didn't mean
anything to them. And coins were better
than bills—hard, bright, and jingly. I
didn't have too much trouble after I'd
instituted the pile of nickels, except that
the kids always wanted to count their piles
during the rest periods. With the younger
ones I used pennies—their pile was bigger
and grew faster."
Rockwell himself has a distinctive and
expressive face (and appears in some of his
own paintings). When he wanted a model
to assume some unusual position or facial
expression, he had no (continued on page 104)
a Scoutmasters truly
have something ...
Talk about good
Americans doing
things for their
community—they're
doing it.
CAN'T WAIT 1972
42
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 66, Number 4, September 1978, periodical, September 1978; New Brunswick, New Jersey. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353547/m1/42/: accessed May 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.