“The Four Freedoms”, an important set of freedoms that set the stage for a collection of Norman Rockwell paintings were first discussed in a speech by President Franklin Roosevelt on January 6, 1941 according to The Institute for the Study of Civic Values. “In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression..…The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own…. The third is freedom from want, which…means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants…. The fourth is freedom from fear, which…means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor.” President Roosevelt spoke this in the midst of World War II.
Norman Rockwell illustrated these paintings two years later. He offered the paintings to the government to be used as posters for the war effort but they were refused. However they were published in the Saturday Evening Post. Ben Hibbs, the editor of the paper said, “Those four pictures quickly became the best-known and most-appreciated paintings of that era. They appeared right at a time when the war was going against us on the battle fronts, and the American people needed the inspirational message which they conveyed so forcefully and beautifully.
Freedom of speech is a painting of a town meeting in which a citizen stands up to express his opinions freely. From his clothes and worn hands, the viewer can tell that he is a common citizen of the time. Freedom from fear is a painting of two children in bed covered up. Their parents stand beside them tucking them in and the father has a newspaper in his hand that says, “Bombings kill…Horror Hits”. The Freedom from want poster is a picture of nine people around a table and a mother and father standing at the head of the table putting down the turkey. Plates and silverware and a tablecloth are on a dining room table. Freedom of worship is a painting with six people standing up all praying.
The four freedom paintings were done in 1943 and the Curtis Publishing Company was the agent for these paintings. They all are a collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge and the Norman Rockwell Art Collection Trust. All of the paintings were originally oil on canvas paintings 45 ¾” by 35 ½” even though most of have seen Rockwell’s paintings have seen a much smaller reproduction of them. All of the paintings were printed as story illustrations in the Saturday Evening Post in 1943. The Freedom of Speech painting was printed February 20, the Freedom of Worship painting was printed February 27, the Freedom from Want was printed March 6, and the Freedom from Fear was printed on March 13.
An exhibition sponsored by the Post and the U.S. Treasury Department turned these paintings into posters and raised more than $130 million for the war effort. The posters encouraged people to buy war bonds. The freedom of fear and freedom of want posters displayed the message “Ours to fight for” with the appropriate title below the picture. The freedom of speech and freedom of worship displayed the message “Buy War Bonds” and had “Save” before the title of the painting displayed above the picture. The freedom of worship painting is the only one to include words in the actual picture. It says “Each according to the dictates of his own conscience”.
The freedom of fear painting is an interesting one since it was the one that was never completed and was intended for a Saturday Evening Post cover but never made it. The image was to convey parents tucking their children into bed in the 1940 air war known as the Battle of Britain but Rockwell says he was never satisfied with the final painting since it was based on a “rather smug idea” since the continental U.S. had never been under attack.
Reference:
- Norman Rockwell Museum Literature
