Tender Years: Mowing the Lawn

From 1948 through 1964, Normal Rockwell was commissioned by Brown & Bigelow to illustrate their annual Four Seasons calendar. The calendars focused on a single theme and Rockwell’s four illustrations presented various seasonal activities. Tender Years: Mowing the Lawn was included in the 1957 calendar as the summer illustration. The winter illustration depicts the male figure admiring a newly acquired calendar under his wife’s watchful gaze, spring presents the wife tending to her sick husband and autumn shows the pair unpacking moth-riddled clothes from an attic trunk. In each image the couple's black and white cat is playfully engaged.

The male model in the Tender Years series was Bob Henderson, head of the creative department at Brown & Bigelow. Henderson was instrumental in developing the concept of the Four Seasons calendar, and he also worked closely with Rockwell on the Brown & Bigelow Boy Scouts of America calendar, one of the artist’s longest and most admired campaigns.