''The Scoutmaster'' is a 1956 painting by American illustrator

Norman Rockwell Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of Culture of the United States, the country's culture. Roc ...

. It was originally created by Rockwell for the 1956

Brown & Bigelow Brown & Bigelow is a company based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, that sells branded apparel and promotional merchandise. History The company was founded in 1896 by Herbert Huse Bigelow and Hiram Brown. On June 24, 1924, Bigelow was convicted fo ...

Boy Scout Calendar. Since then, it has become one of the most collected images that Rockwell created for the

Boy Scouts of America The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded i ...

Creation

Rockwell set out to create a painting dedicated to the Scoutmasters of the United States. In 1953, he visited the 4th

National Scout jamboree In Scouting, a jamboree is a large gathering of Scouts who rally at a national or international level. History The 1st World Scout Jamboree was held in 1920, and was hosted by the United Kingdom. Since then, there have been twenty-three other W ...

Irvine Ranch The Irvine Company LLC is an American private company focused on real estate development. It is headquartered in Newport Beach, California, with a large portion of its operations centered in and around Irvine, California, a planned city of more ...

. Rockwell, who used photographs as a source for his paintings, was staging a

photo shoot A photo shoot is the process taken by creatives and models that results in a visual objective being obtained. An example is a Model (person), model posing for a photographer at a studio or an outdoor location. A photo shoot is a series of images ...

at the jamboree. He approached a Scoutmaster from Oakland and asked him for four boys to pose for a photo. One of the four chosen was

Howard Lincoln Howard Charles Lincoln (born February 14, 1940) is an American lawyer and businessman, known primarily for being the former Chairman of Nintendo of America and the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Seattle Mariners baseball team ...

who would become the chairman of

Nintendo of America is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards. ...

and later the CEO of the

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League West, West division. The team joined the American League ...

. The four Scouts set up tents and built a fire in the middle of a day. Rockwell found a professional Scouter at the jamboree headquarters to pose as the Scoutmaster for the all-day photo shoot. Later that year, Lincoln and the other three Scouts each received a $25 check and a letter from Rockwell asking them to sign a release. Over the course of the next three years, Rockwell turned the daytime pictures into a nighttime painting. The tents in the painting were modified to be civilian tents with guylines and sidewalls instead of military-style pup tents. It debuted as the 1956 Boy Scout Calendar published by Brown & Bigelow.

Composition

The painting is a late night scene that features a

Scoutmaster A Scout leader or Scouter generally refers to the trained adult leader of a Scout unit. The terms used vary from country to country, over time, and with the type of unit. Roles There are many different roles a leader can fulfill depending on t ...

, in full uniform, looking into the dying remains of a campfire. The cookware for that night's dinner is still visible. In the background four Scouts are asleep in two

tent A tent () is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using gu ...

s. Lincoln is in a white shirt directly to the right of the Scoutmaster; his face is visible.

Reception and legacy

''The Scoutmaster'' received praise from Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe who referred it is as one of Rockwell's "master works". The painting was utilized by the Boy Scouts of America as the cover art for the 1960 edition of the ''Scoutmaster's Handbook'' and an issue of the magazine ''

Boys' Life ''Scout Life'' (formerly ''Boys' Life'') is the monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Its target readers are boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 18. The magazine‘s headquarters are in Irving, Texas. ''Scout Life'' is pu ...

''.

Creation

Composition

Reception and legacy

References

Further reading