Norman Rockwell's Political Art

Norman Rockwell is known for his paintings which, many people will say, are far from daring. Some will say that they’re outright boring.

He illustrated the covers of the Saturday Evening Post, a very popular magazine during the first half of the century. His art was made to be as “mass-market” as possible, which is why it’s unsurprisingly apolitical and uncontroversial. Yet, Rockwell has done political paintings and social commentary and, in this video, we’ll take a look at two projects of his which had a political undertone: The Four Freedoms series (with notably Freedom From Want) during WWII and The Problem We All Live With, which depicts the story of Ruby Bridges during the New Orleans Desegregation Crisis in 1960.