Willie Gillis - Background

Background

From 1916 through his Kennedy Memorial cover on December 16, 1963, Rockwell created 321 magazine covers for The Post, which was the most popular American magazine of the first half of the 20th century with a subscribership that reached a peak of 4 million. Rockwell illustrated American life during World War I and World War II in 34 of his cover illustrations, and he illustrated 33 Post covers in total during World War II. Some of the war art involved American life. During much of the first half of the 1940s, Rockwell's cover illustrations focused on the human side of the war. Rockwell encouraged support of the war efforts during World War II via his covers which endorsed war bonds, encouraged women to work, and encouraged 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 war. 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. Rockwell's artistic expressions were said to have helped the adoption of the goal of the Four Freedoms as set forth by United States President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address. His painting series, the Four Freedoms, toured in a war bond effort that raised $132 million.

Willie Gillis was a freckle-faced All-American character who served as one of Rockwell's main coverboys during World War II. The Gillis character is widely referred to as an everyman who epitomized the typical American World War II Soldier. Rockwell created Gillis in 1940 as the European Theatre of World War II was escalating and Americans were enlisting or being drafted under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 in the armed forces. Rockwell credits the name Willie Gillis to his wife, who derived it from an old children's book, Wee Willie Winkie. Rockwell described Gillis as "an inoffensive, ordinary little guy thrown into the chaos of war." The public identified with Rockwell's portrayal of the "little guy" living up to a sense of duty in this time of war. Gillis was truly seen as the typical G.I., and Rockwell's wartime art remains quite popular: his signed original May 29, 1943 depiction of Rosie the Riveter sold at a Sotheby's auction on May 22, 2002 for $4,959,500. Some of the Willie Gillis paintings and the Rosie the Riveter painting were raffled off during the United States Department of the Treasury's Second War Loan Drive, which ran from April 12 – May 1, 1943. The Gillis character endures generations later for literary and artistic comparison.