Title: Saying Grace
Description: Saying Grace is a 1951 painting by Norman Rockwell, painted for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post's November 24, 1951, Thanksgiving issue. The painting depicts an old woman and a young boy saying grace in a crowded restaurant, as they are observed by other people at their table. Rockwell's inspiration for Saying Grace came from a Saturday Evening Post reader who saw a Mennonite family praying in a restaurant. Rockwell used his son, Jarvis, as one of the models for the painting. Elizabeth Goldberg, director of American Art at Sotheby's said that in his preparations for Saying Grace Rockwell "... visited Automats and diners in New York and Philadelphia to get the scene just right ... his imagery was so vivid people would say they recognized the diner even though it didn't exist, each painting felt so universal." Rockwell took the table and chairs from a diner in Times Square for the photo shoot for the painting. In preparations for a painting Rockwell would set up a scene, using his friends and neighbors, taking hundreds of photos until satisfied. Rockwell would produce sketches in charcoal, then oil sketches, before painting the final image. Rockwell was paid $3,500 ($31.9 thousand as of 2016) for Saying Grace. Readers of The Saturday Evening Post voted Saying Grace their favorite ever cover in 1955. Saying Grace had been on a long term loan at the Norman Rockwell Museum, and had been exhibited at 12 other museums across the United States before its 2013 sale.
Author(s): Norman Rockwell