“Freedom of Speech”

TOO OLD TO GET INTO WORLD WAR II, Norman Rockwell decided to help the war effort in the best way he could. The result was the famous "Four Freedoms, " completed in 1943. The paintings were inspired by remarks that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had made in a Presidential address to Congress two years earlier.

Roosevelt had spoken of his ideals for the future of the world and condensed these into the basic notions of freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Rather than try to project these ideals onto the world as a whole, Rockwell showed them as he saw them applying to the United States.

In "Freedom of Speech" he decided to illustrate grass-roots democracy at work in a small New England community. At the annual town meeting a young blue-collar worker stands up to state his views on some matter that is clearly of great importance to him. Rockwell's viewpoint that anyone and everyone can have a voice in American politics—is conveyed directly and succinctly. The artist makes the young speaker a heroic figure, his battered work jacket worn as a badge of honor. The townsfolk who surround him listen to him with respect. The composition is strong and simple, with the young man's head silhouetted against what appears to be a blackboard. It may be that this meeting is taking place in the very schoolroom where he learned the principles that have now brought him to his feet.

Rejected at first in Washington, "The Four Freedoms" was bought and published as an inside supplement by the Post. Much later the Office of War Information reproduced them by the hundreds of thousands—even dropping copies into the European war front.

"Freedom of Speech" was a favorite of Rockwell's. When the curator of American painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York wanted a Rockwell painting for their collection, Rockwell chose to make and send a smaller version of "Freedom of Speech.