Freedom from Want, also known as The Thanksgiving Picture or I’ll Be Home for Christmas, is the third of the Four Freedoms series of four oil paintings by American artist Norman Rockwell. The works were inspired by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Address, known as Four Freedoms.
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| Norman Rockwell, Freedom from Want, 1943, oil on canvas. |
After the US entered the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, these four freedoms were emphasized to restore morale during the wartime years. In June of 1942, Rockwell started sketching paintings based on each of the freedoms, encouraged by the editor of the Saturday Evening Post. Each of Rockwell’s completed paintings ran next to Four Freedom essay features in four Saturday Evening Post newspapers in 1943.
For his subjects, Rockwell chose those close to home. The setting was his living room and the woman bringing in the turkey was based off a photograph Rockwell took of his cook in the same position on Thanksgiving 1942. His wife and mother are portrayed as sitting around the table, as well as neighbors and friends. As Rockwell later said of the turkey, “Our cook cooked it, I painted it and we ate it. That was one of the few times I’ve ever eaten the model.”
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| 1943 poster showing all four paintings. |
The U.S. government used Rockwell’s paintings as a way to boost patriotism and encourage the purchase of war bonds, which were securities to support the war effort abroad. The government collected a sum of about $132 million. The images were so popular that by the end of the 20th century, it is said 25 million people had bought Four Freedom prints and posters.
Although frequently distributed and exhibited throughout the country, Freedom of Want was disliked in Europe, which was being ravaged by war. Rockwell said, “The Europeans sort of resented it because it wasn’t freedom from want, it was overabundance, the table was so loaded down with food.”
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| Norman Rockwell, Freedom from Want, 1943, offset color lithograph on paper. |
Today, all four of the Four Freedom paintings can be found at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to which they were given directly by Rockwell himself. Over the past century, the work has been used for many parodies throughout popular culture, from illustrations and cartoons to TV and film reenactments.
Freedom From Want, especially, is part of the American art canon because of its historical significance as a patriotic representation to finance war bonds, but also as a portrayal of the American Dream. Considered Rockwell’s most famous painting, it echoes his other themes of American regionalism and genre painting: struggle and success, family and food, patriotism and justice.
Happy Thanksgiving!
(via Barnebys Magazine)
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