Norman Rockwell (American, 1894-1978) The Most Beloved American Writer, Woman's Home Companion magazine interior, March 1938 Wolff crayon on paper 21 x 15 inches (53.3 x 38.1 cm) (image) Signed lower right PROVENANCE: Sotheby's, New York, December 1980, lot 177; Acquired by the present owner from the above. Norman Rockwell is celebrated as America's greatest illustrator. When tasked with depicting the equally celebrated 19th-century author Louisa May Alcott, Rockwell began by visiting the Alcott home in Concord, Massachusetts. "Sitting in her bedroom," he wrote, "where everything was just as it had been when she was alive, I had a real sense of the period; the old lamps and the lace curtains and hooked rugs and the Boston rocker took me back." (Norman Rockwell Museum). These illustrations for "The Most Beloved American Writer" stand as Rockwell's most significant work for Woman's Home Companion magazine, comprised of four oil paintings and six ink drawings including the present work. The scene showed here depicts the Little Women author's later life and legacy. While she was a celebrated writer and successful independent woman of means, she struggled with chronic health issues that constrained her-- "Out of such flights into loneliness, restlessness and emptiness -- she made her rich, breathing ardent stories of home." The present work appears as figure S710 on page 816 in Norman Rockwell, A Definitive Catalogue by Laurie Norton Moffatt (The Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge, 1986). HID12401132022 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved