1943 – The Saturday Evening Post series / original oil on canvas.
As a symbol of the United States’ ability to mobilize and transform themselves during the war effort, Norman Rockwell created this Post cover “LIBERTY GIRL (Rosie the Riveter)”, honoring the mythical embodiment of all the new roles that now belonged to the American woman during wartime. Rosie the Riveter received mass distribution on the Saturday Evening Post’s magazine cover on Memorial Day, May 29, 1943. Rockwell’s illustration features a brawny woman taking her lunch break with a rivet gun on her lap and a lunch pail labeled “Rosie”.
Rockwell based the pose to match Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling painting of the prophet Isaiah. Still, he chose a model to paint her as a girl-next-door, accentuating her authenticity. Rockwell’s model was a Vermont resident, then 19-year-old Mary Doyle Keefe, a telephone operator near Rockwell’s lived, not a riveter. Rockwell painted his “Rosie” as a larger woman than his model, and he later phoned to apologize. The Saturday Evening Post’s cover image proved hugely popular, and the magazine loaned it to the U.S. Treasury Department for the duration of the war, for use in the II world war bond drives.
The “LIBERTY GIRL (Rosie the Riveter)” Printer’s Proof giclée comes with a Certificate of Authenticity from the gallery. Please see sizes and prices as follows bellow!
Small: 33cm x 47cm
Medium: 50cm x 72cm
Large: 71cm x 101cm
