Norman Rockwell is the emblematic figure of the golden age of the illustrated press. Despite a style described as hyper realistic, the success of photography in the 1960s precipitated the end of his career. Able to represent the strengths and weaknesses of the Americans and defending great causes, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom a year before his death, in 1977. By the highest civilian decoration of the United States, President Gerald Ford wanted to thank him for his “living and loving portraits of our country”.

Although his overly empathetic treatment of his subjects was criticized and delayed his recognition by the art world, the Guggenheim Museum eventually organized his first retrospective in 2001. Since then, his works have sold for millions.

His painting The Problem We All Live With was exhibited at the White House in 2011 when Barack Obama received Ruby Bridges.

Ruby Bridges at age 6 was the first African American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, 1960.

Today, Norman Rockwell is no longer just recognized as an illustrator by his peers and the public but is well regarded as one of America’s greatest painters.