Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell)

February 20, 1943 – The Saturday Evening Post publishes the first of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms.

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1 Freedom of Speech 2 Freedom of Worship 3 Freedom from Want 4 Freedom from Fear

The Four Freedoms or Four Essential Human Freedoms is a series of four oil paintings produced in 1943 by the American artist Norman Rockwell. The paintings—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear—are approximately equal in dimension at 45.75 inches (116.2 cm) × 35.5 inches (90 cm). The series, now in the Norman Rockwell Museum, was made for reproduction in the Saturday Evening Post (The Post) over the course of four consecutive weeks in 1943 alongside essays by prominent thinkers of the day. Later they were the highlight of a touring exhibition sponsored by The Post and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The touring exhibition and accompanying sales drives raised over $132 million in the sale of war bonds.

The Four Freedoms theme was derived from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's January 1941 State of the Union Address. During the speech Roosevelt identified four essential human rights—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear—that should be universally protected. The theme was incorporated into the Atlantic Charter, and it became part of the charter of the United Nations.

This series has been regarded as the cornerstone of retrospective art exhibits presenting the career of Rockwell, who was the most widely known commercial artist of the mid 20th century, but who failed to achieve critical acclaim commensurate with his popularity. These are perhaps Rockwell's best-known works of art, and they were the most widely distributed paintings ever produced by some accounts. At one time they were commonly displayed in post offices, schools, clubs, railroad stations, and a variety of public and semi-public buildings.

Critical review of these images, like most of Rockwell's work, has not been entirely positive. Rockwell's idyllic and nostalgic approach to regionalism made him a popular illustrator but a lightly regarded fine artist during his lifetime. This view still generally prevails today. However, he has created a niche in the enduring social fabric with the Freedom from Want image which is emblematic of what is now known as the "Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving".

Throughout his political career Roosevelt championed the cause of human rights. In his Annual State of the Union Address to Congress of January 6, 1941, which was delivered at a time when Nazi Germany occupied much of Western Europe, he asked the American citizens to support war efforts in various ways. He stated his vision of a better future, founded upon four freedoms: "In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms," some traditional and some new ones: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

Roosevelt's January 6 State of the Union Address became known as his "Four Freedoms Speech", due to its conclusion that described President's vision of worldwide extension of the American ideals of individual liberties summarized by these four freedoms. To put it another way, FDR's speech was known for "identifying the objectives of the war and revealing his hopeful view of the postwar world." The speech helped to awaken Congress and the nation to the dire war calling, articulate ideological aims of the necessary armed conflict and appeal to the universal American belief of freedom. Domestically, the Four Freedoms were not something that Roosevelt was able to achieve through simple legislation, although they provided a theme for American military participation in the war. Of the Four Freedoms, the only two described in the United States Constitution were freedom of speech and freedom of worship.

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State of the Union (Four Freedoms) (January 6, 1941)

"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—everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, 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—anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb."
—Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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Norman Rockwell (pre-1923)

From 1916 through his Kennedy Memorial cover on December 16, 1963,[19] Rockwell created 322 magazine covers for The Saturday Evening Post, which was once the most popular American magazine. In a preelectronic era where mass production magazine color illustration was the most popular form of media, Rockwell became a national name, and by the 1950s was rivaled only by Walt Disney for his familiarity to the public among visual artists. During World War I, Rockwell had taken a bit of a back seat to more established illustrators under The Post editorship of George Horace Lorimer, who had died in 1937. Unfettered by Lorimer's restrictions, Rockwell saw the opportunity to illustrate the Four Freedoms as an opportunity of a lifetime.

Rockwell's cover illustrations showed the human side of the American war effort. Rockwell encouraged support for the war efforts during World War II via his covers which promoted war bonds, and encouraged women to work and men to enlist in the service. His World War II illustrations used themes of patriotism, longing, shifting gender roles, reunion, love, work, community and family during wartime to promote the American military effort. In his role as a magazine illustrator during times of war, Rockwell draws comparisons to Winslow Homer, an American Civil War illustrator for Harper's Weekly. These four Rockwell artistic expressions were said to have led to the adoption of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms as a goal.

The Four Freedoms had become an important theme for Artists for Victory, an artist consortium that included Rockwell. The consortium was one of several professional artists' organizations that helped meet government demands for promotional artwork for the war. It also sponsored exhibits about global peace.

Rockwell was perceived as apolitical, but believed in "tolerance for differences, courtesy, kindness, and the freedoms that FDR articulated". He believed FDR's freedoms were worth fighting for, and he made numerous artistic contributions to the war efforts in addition to the Four Freedoms. He is widely known for his idealized fictional wartime character Willie Gillis and his depiction of Rosie the Riveter. Some of his other war art is known by name such as War News and Homecoming Soldier. He was responsible for encouraging individual monetary support of the war through emotional posters like Hasten the Homecoming, 1943.

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Example of a Ben Shahn poster that was passed over.

Upon publication of the series, The Saturday Evening Post received millions of reprint requests. The Post produced 25,000 sets, including both the essays and full-color reproductions of the paintings, which it sold at cost for $0.25 ($3.37 in 2014 dollars). According to Rockwell, the OWI got involved and produced 2.5 million sets of Four Freedoms posters only after the public demanded reprints. By the end of the war, 4 million posters had been printed. Both the Freedom from Fear and Freedom from Want posters had the leading caption "ours. . .to fight for" and the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Worship had the leading caption "Buy War Bonds" and the word "Save" before the respective freedom. There is also a 1946 lithograph version of the 1943 paintings with all four paintings under the heading "ours. . .to fight for".

The Four Freedoms were reproduced in posters by the United States Government Printing Office and on postage stamps by the United States Postal Service. The series served as commemorative covers for war bonds and postage stamps sold during the War Bond show. The stamps are not to be confused with the February 12, 1943 one-cent Four Freedoms Postage Stamp Issue by another artist. The Rockwell versions were issued in a set of four fifty-cent stamps in 1994, the 100th anniversary of Rockwell's birth. Freedom from Want was included as the cover image of the 1946 book Norman Rockwell, Illustrator that was written when Rockwell was "at the height of his fame as America's most popular illustrator". By 1972, this 1946 publication was in its seventh printing. Although the paintings were originally intimately connected to Roosevelt and the American cause in World War II, the paintings have now developed an independent iconic identity in textbooks and on ties as well as in the cultural and social fabric. By the end of the 20th century, 25 million people bought Rockwell's Four Freedoms prints.

Rockwell noted that the series took an emotional toll on him, saying that the works were "serious paintings which sucked the energy right out of me like dredges, leaving me dazed and thoroughly weary." His subsequent assignment was to produce the 1943 April Fools' Day cover for The Post, which much more relaxing.

Rockwell was solicited for a variety of works following the publication of the Four Freedoms. Massachusetts Representative Edith Nourse Rogers put forth a congressional resolution to declare a fifth freedom: "Freedom of Private Enterprise". Bronx Inter-Racial Conference chairman Roderick Stephens, requested Rockwell's services to highlight the need for improved interracial relations in a series that would complement the original Four Freedoms. Rockwell and Stephens communicated, and, over the course of his career, Rockwell did contemplate and depict race relations in several works, but not as a series.

Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.

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Between 1941 and 1946, the United States Department of the Treasury conducted eight War Loan Drives to promote the sale of war bonds to finance America's World War II efforts. The government used several forms of solicitation, advertising and marketing, such as aircraft carrier exhibits. For the Seventh War Loan Drive, they used direct appeals from all five-star generals and admirals (George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Jackson D. Arnold, Ernest King, Chester W. Nimitz and William D. Leahy), and used a commemorative bond image of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Eighth War Loan Drive. The marketing attempts were quite varied even within a single War Loan Drive.

The War Bond Drives were viewed as excellent events for boosting national morale by giving all citizens the opportunity to support the war effort. They boosted patriotism and were a good marketing device for drumming up support. In fact, not only did celebrities help promote the bonds for free, but also, most air time and advertising space for the bonds was donated.

The first War Loan Drive, known as "The Victory Loan Drive", began in early 1942. It was initiated by Roosevelt and United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau and raised $13 billion ($186 billion in 2014 dollars). Despite its success, only thirty-five percent of the American citizenry understood the objectives of the war.

Between January and April 1943, The Post and the United States Department of the Treasury collaborated to plan the Second War Bond Drive tour featuring the Four Freedoms beginning at Hecht's in Washington, D.C. Thousands of people volunteered to be part of the War Bond Drive and The Post used its resources to promote the tour. In 1943, the Saturday Evening Post donated the Four Freedoms to the Second War Loan Drive. The OWI assumed the lead in marketing the Bond Drive. Using an all-star celebrity roster and the Hollywood Writers Mobilization, they created a March 1943 radio dramatization via their "Free World Theater". The OWI produced and distributed posters of the Four Freedoms to 400,000 retailers via the Boy Scouts and began receiving 2,000 daily poster requests.

The tour began on April 26, 1943 at Hecht's. Rockwell was present at the debut to make obligatory appearances in front of ambassadors and dignitaries and to sign autographs. In the subsequent days, he sketched people in the White House waiting room using charcoal. Due to strained relations with The Post, Morganthau did not attend the debut. The show ran for eleven days in Washington, D.C. with a wide variety of celebratory festivities, such as hourly featured guests and entertainers, chorus performances, and military unit exhibitions. The second stop of the tour coincided with the 75th anniversary of Strawbridge and Clothier in Philadelphia. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Durant were among the celebrities on hand. The tour arrived at New York City's Rockefeller Center on June 4 with festivities that featured Kate Smith. The tour arrived in Boston on June 19 at Filene's. Subsequent stops included Buffalo (July 12), Rochester, NY (August 2), and Pittsburgh, (September 8). In the Midwest, the show stopped in Detroit (September 27), Cleveland (October 25) and Chicago (November 11). Other stops included St. Louis (December 16), New Orleans (January 16, 1944), Dallas (January 27), Los Angeles (February 12), Portland (March 27) and Denver (May 1).

Bond purchasers received full-color reproduction sets. During the 16-city tour, which included various celebrities, public officials, and entertainers, approximately 1.2 million people throughout the United States viewed the paintings, which helped to raise $132 million ($18.533 million for the Second Loan Drive alone) for the war effort though the sale of war bonds. According to The New Yorker in 1945, the Four Freedoms "were received by the public with more enthusiasm, perhaps, than any other paintings in the history of American art". Rockwell is widely credited with contributing to the success of the war effort. However, Rockwell only took part in the war bond tour when it was convenient for his other interests. He did not travel with the tour which lasted a year.

The Four Freedoms were widely exhibited as part of the sixteen-city Second War Loan Drive in 1943 and have subsequently been part of other tours and exhibitions. They were a highlight of the first comprehensive Rockwell touring exhibition, entitled Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People, which was a seven-city tour that ran from November 1999 until February 2002. They returned to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, which had been part of the Pictures for the American People tour, for an exhibition in association with the National World War II Memorial grand opening in 2004. In addition to being included in various tours, the Four Freedoms were the subject of a 144-page book in 1993, the fiftieth anniversary of their production.

In addition to exhibitions of the Four Freedoms by Rockwell, there have been tribute exhibitions of works by other artists depicting these themes. For example, in 2008, the Wolfsonian museum at Florida International University, 60 artists exhibited 80 works that represented their takes on the Four Freedoms. Other artists, such as Thomas Kinkade, have found individual inspiration in Rockwell's patriotic works, resulting in their own works using different symbols to present similar themes.

Following the 1943–44 War Bond Show, the Four Freedoms toured the country further by train in a specially-designed car. Through the 1950s the Four Freedoms hung in Hibbs' offices at The Post. Hibb retired in 1961 and by the time The Post was discontinued in 1969, Rockwell regained possession of the original paintings. Norman Rockwell bequeathed his personal collection in trust to the Norman Rockwell Museum in 1973 for the "advancement of art appreciation and art education". This collection included the Four Freedoms paintings. The works remained on exhibit at "The Norman Rockwell Museum at The Old Corner House" for nearly 25 years. In 1993, when the Rockwell Museum moved from its original location, the Four Freedoms were displayed in the new museum's central gallery. As of 2014, the Four Freedoms remain in the collection of the Museum. In 2011, the Williamstown Art Conservation Center did some work on the Four Freedoms, including reducing exposure to various elements and preventing further wear.

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.
John Adams