My best efforts were some modern things that looked like very lousy Matisses. Thank God I had the sense to realize they were lousy, and leave Paris.

Rockwell's work was dismissed by serious art critics in his lifetime. He spent the next ten years painting for Look magazine where his work depicted his interests in civil rights poverty and space exploration. [citation needed]

Rockwell's family moved to New Rochelle New York when Norman was 21 years old and shared a studio with the cartoonist Clyde Forsythe who worked for The Saturday Evening Post.

Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine for more than four decades. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture.