This illustration was printed in the Saturday Evening Post, in the February 7, 1925 issue and was reproduced as figure A310 on page 383 of Norman Rockwell A Definitive Catalogue by Laurie Moffatt. This piece was exhibited at the Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge and has its exhibition label affixed to the back of the frame. The Norman Rockwall illustration was an advertisement for Fisk Tire Company.
This piece sold for $143,400 in December 2007.
Laurie Moffatt has noted in Norman Rockwell A Definitive Catalogue, “The Fisk Tire Ads are an entertaining lot of illustrations which feature some of Norman Rockwell’s favorite themes of his early career. The series was actually two campaigns; the earliest ads with one exception were for bicycle tires, while the latter part of the series advertised automobile tires. The ‘Time to Retire’ auto series had fewer ads but again featured popular Rockwell motifs of young boys, dogs, and kindly tramps.”As Thomas S. Buechner, director of the Brooklyn Museum remarked in the 1972 monograph, Norman Rockwell A Sixty Year Retrospective, “Detailed attention to all parts — with extra attention given to faces — has been a Rockwell hallmark from the very beginning. Capturing just the right expression has long been one of his great if not unique strengths, and he worked hard to get it. In his early work he often emphasizes what the facial features are doing in an effort to convey the proper emotion.”
