Explore the Production of this artwork.
In mid-June Rockwell sketched in charcoal the Four Freedoms and sought commission from the Office of War Information (OWI). He was rebuffed by an official who said, "The last war, you illustrators did the posters. This war, we're going to use fine arts men, real artists." However, Saturday Evening Post editor, Ben Hibbs, recognized the potential of the set and encouraged Rockwell to produce them right away. By early fall, the authors for the Four Freedoms had submitted their essays. Rockwell was concerned that Freedom from Want  did not match Bulosan's text.  In mid-November, Hibbs wrote Rockwell pleading that he not scrap his third work to start over. Hibbs alleviated Rockwell's thematic concern; he explained that the illustrations only needed to address the same topic rather than be in unison. Hibbs pressured Rockwell into completing his work by warning him that the magazine was on the verge of being compelled by the government to place restrictions on four-color printing, so Rockwell had better get the work published before relegation to halftone printing.In 1942, Rockwell decided to use neighbors as models for the series. In Freedom from Want, he used his living room for the setting and relied on neighbors for advice, critical commentary, and their service as his models.  For Freedom from Want, Rockwell photographed his cook as she presented the turkey on Thanksgiving Day 1942. He said that he painted the turkey on that day and that, unlike Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Worship, this painting was not difficult to execute. Rockwell's wife Mary is in this painting, and the family cook, Mrs. Thaddeus Wheaton, is serving the turkey, which the Rockwell family ate that day. The nine adults and two children depicted were photographed in Rockwell's studio and painted into the scene later. The models are (clockwise from Wheaton) Lester Brush, Florence Lindsey, Rockwell's mother Nancy, Jim Martin, Mr. Wheaton, Mary Rockwell, Charles Lindsey, and the Hoisington children. Jim Martin appears in all four paintings in the series. Shirley Hoisington, the girl at the end of the table, was six at the time.After the Four Freedoms series ran in The Saturday Evening Post, the magazine made sets of reproductions available to the public and received 25,000 orders. Additionally the OWI, which six months earlier had declined to employ Rockwell to promote the Four Freedoms, requested 2.5 million sets of posters featuring the Four Freedoms for its war-bond drive in early 1943.Rockwell bequeathed this painting to a custodianship that became the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and it is now part of the museum's permanent collection. Rockwell lived in Stockbridge from 1953 until his death in 1978.
Norman Rockwell Office of War Information Stockbridge Four Freedoms Norman Rockwell Museum The Saturday Evening Post Thanksgiving Day Stockbridge, Massachusetts Thanksgiving turkey Freedom of Worship Freedom of Speech models Massachusetts