Lot 563

NORMAN ROCKWELL ORIGINAL PAINTING

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NORMAN ROCKWELL ORIGINAL PAINTING

Estimate: $100,000 - $150,000

Starting Bid: $80,000

(0 Bids)

by Jackson's International
August 12, 2026 9:00 AM CDT
Live Auction
2229 Lincoln Street
Cedar Falls, IA, US 50613

NORMAN ROCKWELL ORIGINAL PAINTING
Norman Rockwell (American 1894-1978)
Young Love/Swinging - 1949 (From the Four Seasons series)
Watercolor, ink and graphite on paper
Signed lower right and SUMMER/1949 within the composition top center and lower center
Image size 16.5 x 16.5 inches. Sheet size 20.5 x 19.5 inches

Provenance:
Mr. William H. Alger Jr. (1903-1991) Winnetka, Illinois, to his wife Mary Alger (1906-1996) to her daughter Mary Katherine Alger Carlson (1933-2025) to her daughters, the current owners.

William Hart Alger was an executive of the Chicago based CNA Insurance Companies. A 1960 dated photo of his office displays Rockwell's October 4, 1941, Post cover painting of Willie Gillis: Package from Home which Mr. Alger donated to the company upon retirement and which the company sold at auction in December of 2012. (See Susanins Auctioneers & Appraisers Chicago, Illinois, auction of December 1, 2012, as lot #6100.) According to the consignors, the painting has been in their family for well over 65 years.

Literature:
Laurie Norton Moffatt, Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, Volume I (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1986), p. 306, no. A118, illustrated.

Comparison:
For the 1949 "Autumn" illustration from this Four Seasons series see: Skinners Auctioneers, Boston, MA, sale of February 7, 2014 as lot 593.

The offered painting, is related to works done by Rockwell for the noted publishing firm of Brown & Bigelow, St. Paul, Minnesota. On an original as-issued copy of the Brown & Bigelow 1949 calendar featuring the offered lot (see photo), the calendar cover sheet is printed with the following introductory text:

THE FOUR SEASONS. A NEW KIND OF CALENDAR… BRINGING YOU REPRODUCTIONS OF FOUR FINE WATER-COLORS BY AMERICA'S FOREMOST ILLUSTRATOR.

A Message from the Artist.

Boy and girl… It's a theme as old as time, yet eternally new. So when I started penciling sketches for the second edition of Four Seasons, the thought came to me – why not picture a boy and girl in the little, human adventures of every day. So here I have taken two youngsters – three if you count Bowser – and followed them through the changing seasons. Crisp white winter brings sledding and apple red cheeks, while Bowser races alongside. It's spring, lush with budding flowers and greening fields, and the boy and girl play an old game. Summer brings fun-packed days, swinging in the old apple tree, with Bowser grimly hanging on. The color-splashed autumn – reluctant feet trudge back to school, but a dog must stay behind. To me, painting these pictures has been a stimulating assignment. I have imagined the calendar hanging on thousands of walls, helping people mark the marching days. And I have tried, as best I know, to give those people a little of beauty and happiness and humanity. Norman Rockwell

In typical Rockwell. In typical Rockwell innocent fashion, the offered lot depicts a young boy holding a "buttercup," or dandelion, under a young girl's chin to see if a yellow reflection appears. This, of course, is an age-old superstition meant to indicate whether or not they like butter, thereby turning a simple bright yellow weed into a magical "golden gem" that offers a fun, harmless answer.

According to renowned Rockwell expert Laurie Norton Moffatt, author of the two-volume Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalog (published in 1986), she writes in Volume I, page 301:

"NR had a long-standing relationship with the Brown & Bigelow company located in St. Paul, Minnesota. While some of NR's paintings were published indirectly through Brown & Bigelow, as in the case of his fifty Boy Scout calendars, many of the published illustrations were direct commissions.

The most familiar Rockwell calendar series is the Four Seasons series, which ran for seventeen years, from 1948 to 1964. The series treats NR's traditional subjects in a lighthearted, episodic manner. Each quarterly scene depicts a favorite or typical seasonal activity.

The calendar series was NR's own creation, and not—as he comments in an interview in The American Weekly of 30 August 1954—'based on somebody else's high-pressured mental nudging.' The young and the old were his preferred models as they remained strictly themselves, neither group wanting to 'pretty up.'

The series became another Brown & Bigelow bestseller, to compete with NR's own Boy Scouts of America series. Its success transcended the last group done in 1964 and continues today as Brown & Bigelow reprints the scenes each year for calendars, plates, and other items of collectible interest."

Brown & Bigelow, founded in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, became one of the world's largest publishers of calendars and promotional merchandise, renowned for commissioning premier American illustrators such as Rockwell for their artwork. Throughout the mid-20th century, the company's calendars reached an estimated 50 million homes, featuring iconic pin-ups, Americana, and landscapes.

  • Condition: Important Notice: The absence of condition information in the description does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition, a condition report is available by request.

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