Freedom from Want

{{quote box|width=27em|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|quote=The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.|salign=right|source=—Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union address introducing the theme of the Four Freedoms{{cite web|url=http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/pdfs/ffreadingcopy.pdf|title=Message To Congress 1941|publisher=Marist College|access-date=August 21, 2014}}}}

Freedom from Want is the third in a series of four oil paintings entitled Four Freedoms by Norman Rockwell. They were inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's State of the Union Address, known as Four Freedoms, delivered to the 77th United States Congress on January 6, 1941.{{cite web|url=https://www.usnews.com/usnews/documents/docpages/document_page70.htm|title=100 Documents That Shaped America:President Franklin Roosevelt's Annual Message (Four Freedoms) to Congress (1941)|access-date=April 11, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080412075512/http://www.usnews.com/usnews/documents/docpages/document_page70.htm|archive-date=April 12, 2008|publisher=U.S. News & World Report, L.P.|work=U.S. News & World Report}} In the early 1940s, Roosevelt's Four Freedoms themes were still vague and abstract to many, but the government used them to help boost patriotism.{{cite book|title=Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms|author1=Murray, Stuart |author2=James McCabe |name-list-style=amp |isbn=0-517-20213-1|publisher=Gramercy Books|year=1993|page=7}} The Four Freedoms' theme was eventually incorporated into the Atlantic Charter,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7VjcHPR2lfcC&q=%22Four+Freedoms%22+Atlantic+Charter&pg=PA49|title=2048: Humanity's Agreement to Live Together|author=Boyd, Kirk|isbn=978-1-4596-2515-0|page=12|publisher=ReadHowYouWant|year=2012|access-date=August 21, 2014}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mhhecYMgUNsC&q=%22Four+Freedoms%22+Atlantic+Charter&pg=PA287|title=The Kravchenko Case: One Man's War on Stalin|author=Kern, Gary|isbn=978-1-929631-73-5|page=287|publisher=Enigma Books|year=2007|access-date=August 21, 2014}} and it became part of the charter of the United Nations. The series of paintings ran in The Saturday Evening Post accompanied by essays from noted writers on four consecutive weeks: Freedom of Speech (February 20), Freedom of Worship (February 27), Freedom from Want (March 6), and Freedom from Fear (March 13). Eventually, the series was widely distributed in poster form and became instrumental in the U.S. Government War Bond Drive.{{cite web|url=https://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/and_thats_the_way_it_was_febru_7.php|title=And that's the way it was: February 20, 1943|access-date=January 15, 2014|date=February 20, 2013|work=Columbia Journalism Review|author=Ngo, Sang}}

The illustration is an oil painting on canvas, measuring {{convert|45.75|x|35.5|in|cm}}. The Norman Rockwell Museum describes it as a story illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, complementary to the theme,{{cite web|url=http://www.nrm.org/2011/11/place-settings/freedom-from-want_3_5/|title=Norman Rockwell (1894–1978), "Freedom from Want," 1943. Oil on canvas, 45 ¾ x 35 ½"|access-date=December 17, 2013|publisher=Norman Rockwell Museum}} but the image is also an autonomous visual expression.{{cite web|url=https://www.tampabay.com/features/visualarts/freedom-from-want-and-norman-rockwell-are-about-more-than-nostalgia/1261746/|title='Freedom From Want' and Norman Rockwell are about more than nostalgia|access-date=December 17, 2013|date=November 17, 2012|work=Tampa Bay Times|author=Bennett, Lennie}}

The painting shows an aproned matriarch presenting a roasted turkey to a family of several generations,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G4IkgU7jpLwC&q=%22Freedom+From+Want%22+Rockwell&pg=PA225|title=The 1940s|access-date=November 29, 2013|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=2004|isbn=0-313-31299-0|author=Sickels, Robert C.|page=225}} in Rockwell's idealistic presentation of family values. The patriarch looks on with fondness and approval from the head of the table,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JPlYOG52w2UC&q=%22Freedom+From+Want%22+Rockwell&pg=PT578|title=Understanding Art|edition=10th|access-date=November 30, 2013|publisher=Cengage Learning|year=2012|isbn=978-1-111-83695-5|page=559|author=Fichner-Rathus, Lois}} which is the central element of the painting. Its creased tablecloth shows that this is a special occasion for "sharing what we have with those we love", according to Lennie Bennett. The table has a bowl of fruit, celery, pickles, and what appears to be cranberry sauce. There is a covered silver serving dish that would traditionally hold potatoes, according to Richard Halpern, but Bennett describes this as a covered casserole dish. The servings are less prominent than the presentation of white linen, white plates and water-filled glasses. The people in the painting are not yet eating, and the painting contrasts the empty plates and vacant space in their midst with images of overabundance.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FwF-AWzsLIYC&pg=PA72|title=Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence|access-date=November 28, 2013|year=2006|isbn=0-226-31440-5|publisher=University of Chicago Press|pages=72–73|author=Halpern, Richard}}

{{quote box|width=23em|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=left|quote=Our cook cooked it, I painted it and we ate it. That was one of the few times I've ever eaten the model.|salign=right|source=—Rockwell{{cite book|title=Norman Rockwell's People|publisher=Harry N. Abrams|year=1981|author=Meyer, Susan E.|page=133|isbn=0-8109-1777-7}}}}

In mid-June Rockwell sketched in charcoal the Four Freedoms and sought commission from the Office of War Information (OWI). He was rebuffed by an official who said, "The last war, you illustrators did the posters. This war, we're going to use fine arts men, real artists." However, Saturday Evening Post editor Ben Hibbs recognized the potential of the set and encouraged Rockwell to produce them right away. By early fall, the authors for the Four Freedoms had submitted their essays. Rockwell was concerned that Freedom from Want did not match Bulosan's text. In mid-November, Hibbs wrote Rockwell pleading that he not scrap his third work to start over. Hibbs alleviated Rockwell's thematic concern; he explained that the illustrations only needed to address the same topic rather than be in unison. Hibbs pressured Rockwell into completing his work by warning him that the magazine was on the verge of being compelled by the government to place restrictions on four-color printing, so Rockwell had better get the work published before relegation to halftone printing.{{cite book|title=Norman Rockwell: A Life|url=https://archive.org/details/normanrockwellli0000clar|url-access=registration|chapter=21: The Big Ideas|publisher=Random House|year=2001|author=Claridge, Laura|pages=[https://archive.org/details/normanrockwellli0000clar/page/307 307]–308|isbn=0-375-50453-2}}

In 1942, Rockwell decided to use neighbors as models for the series.{{cite web|url=http://www.nrm.org/page96|title=Norman Rockwell in the 1940s: A View of the American Homefront |publisher=Norman Rockwell Museum|access-date=April 12, 2008|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070720223914/http://www.nrm.org/page96 |archive-date = July 20, 2007|url-status=dead}} In Freedom from Want, he used his living room for the setting and relied on neighbors for advice, critical commentary, and their service as his models.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uc8KP_QtW-sC&q=%22Freedom+From+Want%22+Rockwell&pg=PA556|title=Liberty and Freedom: A Visual History of America's Founding Ideas|access-date=November 28, 2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|isbn=0-19-516253-6|author=Fischer, David Hackett |author-link=David Hackett Fischer |page=556}} For Freedom from Want, Rockwell photographed his cook as she presented the turkey on Thanksgiving Day 1942. He said that he painted the turkey on that day and that, unlike Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Worship, this painting was not difficult to execute.{{cite book|title=Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People|isbn=0-8109-6392-2|chapter=The Four Freedoms|author1=Hennessey, Maureen Hart|author2=Anne Knutson|name-list-style=amp|year=1999|page=[https://archive.org/details/normanrockwellpi00henn/page/100 100]|publisher=Harry N. Abrams, Inc. with High Museum of Art and Norman Rockwell Museum|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/normanrockwellpi00henn/page/100}} Rockwell's wife Mary is in this painting, and the family cook, Mrs. Thaddeus Wheaton,{{cite web|url=http://www.vpr.net/episode/55733/henningsen-four-freedoms/|title=Henningsen: The Four Freedoms|access-date=December 17, 2013|date=April 1, 2013|publisher=Vermont Public Radio|author=Henningsen, Vic}} is placing in front of Mr. Wheaton (who is the man standing at the end of the table) the turkey that the Rockwell family ate that day.{{cite web|url=http://www.nrm.org/pdfs/family-guide.pdf|title=Honoring the American Spirit|access-date=December 17, 2013|publisher=Norman Rockwell Museum}} The nine adults and two children depicted were photographed in Rockwell's studio and painted into the scene later.{{cite web|url=http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/1127/Thanksgiving-A-look-back-at-Norman-Rockwell-s-iconic-illustration-Freedom-From-Want|title=Thanksgiving: A look back at Norman Rockwell's iconic illustration 'Freedom From Want': Deborah Solomon's book 'American Mirror' gives a new perspective to one of Rockwell's most famous paintings.|access-date=December 17, 2013|date=November 27, 2013|work=Christian Science Monitor|author=Heitman, Danny}} The models are (clockwise from Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton) Lester Brush, Florence Lindsey, Rockwell's mother Nancy, Jim Martin, Dan Walsh, Mary Rockwell, Charles Lindsey, and the Hoisington children, Bill and Shirley. Jim Martin appears in all four paintings in the series.{{cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,766759,00.html|title=I Like To Please People|access-date=April 7, 2008|date=June 21, 1943 |magazine=Time}} Shirley Hoisington, the girl at the end of the table, was six at the time.{{cite book|title=Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms|author1=Murray, Stuart |author2=James McCabe |name-list-style=amp |isbn=0-517-20213-1|publisher=Gramercy Books|year=1993|page=50}}

After the Four Freedoms series ran in The Saturday Evening Post, the magazine made sets of reproductions available to the public and received 25,000 orders. Additionally the OWI, which six months earlier had declined to employ Rockwell to promote the Four Freedoms, requested 2.5 million sets of posters featuring the Four Freedoms for its war-bond drive in early 1943.{{cite web|url=http://www.americainwwii.com/articles/norman-rockwell-and-the-four-freedoms/|title=Norman Rockwell and the Four Freedoms|access-date=December 17, 2013|author=Heydt, Bruce|work=America in WWII|date=February 2006}}

Rockwell bequeathed this painting to a custodianship that became the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and it is now part of the museum's permanent collection. Rockwell lived in Stockbridge from 1953 until his death in 1978.

File:Rockwell-Norman-LOC.jpg

Freedom from Want is considered one of Rockwell's finest works.{{cite book|title=American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell|chapter=Fifteen: The Four Freedoms (May 1942 to May 1943)|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|year=2013|last=Solomon|first=Deborah|author-link=Deborah Solomon|isbn=978-0-374-11309-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/americanmirrorli0000solo/page/209 209]|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/americanmirrorli0000solo/page/209}} Of the four paintings in the Four Freedoms, it is the one most often seen in art books with critical review and commentary. Although all were intended to promote patriotism in a time of war, Freedom from Want became a symbol of "family togetherness, peace, and plenty", according to Linda Rosenkrantz, who compares it to "a 'Hallmark' Christmas".{{cite web| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080422210059/http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=318935|archive-date=April 22, 2008|url=http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=318935|title=A Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving|access-date=April 7, 2008|date=November 13, 2006|publisher=The Repository|work=Canton Repository|last= Rosenkrantz| first= Linda}} Embodying nostalgia for an enduring American theme of holiday celebration, the painting is not exclusively associated with Thanksgiving, and is sometimes known as I'll Be Home for Christmas.{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/2008/music/reviews/tony-bennett-3-1200472717/|title=Review: 'Tony Bennett'|access-date=June 12, 2014|date=December 16, 2008|work=Variety|last= Daniels| first= Robert L.}} The abundance and unity it shows were the idyllic hope of a post-war world, and the image has been reproduced in various formats.

According to author Amy Dempsey, during the Cold War, Rockwell's images affirmed traditional American values, depicting Americans as prosperous and free.{{cite book|title=Art in the Modern Era|last= Dempsey| first= Amy|isbn=0-8109-4172-4|publisher=Harry N. Abrams, Inc.|chapter=1918–1945: American Scene|page=165|year=2002| quote= During the Cold War, Rockwell's images of domestic America—solid, dependable, prosperous and, above all, free—gave a whole generation of Americans an immensely appealing and persuasive view of their traditional values.}} Rockwell's work came to be categorized within art movements and styles such as Regionalism and American scene painting. Rockwell's work sometimes displays an idealized vision of America's rural and agricultural past.{{cite book|title=Art in the Modern Era|last= Dempsey| first= Amy|isbn=0-8109-4172-4|publisher=Harry N. Abrams, Inc.|chapter=1918–1945: American Scene|page=165|year=2002| quote= Two defining events of the 1930s, the Great Depression and the rise of Fascism in Europe, prompted many American artists to turn away from abstraction and to adopt realistic styles of painting. For Regionalists (see *American Scene), this meant the promotion of an idealized, often chauvinistic vision of America's agrarian past.}} Rockwell summed up his own idealism: "I paint life as I would like it to be."{{cite book|title=American Art and Artists|chapter=The Depression and World War II|pages=[https://archive.org/details/smithsonianqaame00tric/page/122 122–123]|publisher=HarperCollins Publishers|year=2007|last=Wright|first=Tricia|isbn=978-0-06-089124-4|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/smithsonianqaame00tric/page/122}}

Despite Rockwell's general optimism, he had misgivings about having depicted such a large turkey when much of Europe was "starving, overrun [and] displaced" as World War II raged.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wk9tVC7WwyoC&q=%22Freedom+From+Want%22+Rockwell&pg=PT24|title=A New Deal For The World|access-date=November 28, 2013|year=2007|isbn=978-0-674-28192-9|publisher=Harvard University Press|last= Borgwardt, Elizabeth}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eyDQEt3tKoEC&q=%22Freedom+From+Want%22+Rockwell&pg=PA33|title=Bringing Human Rights Home: Portraits of the movement|access-date=November 28, 2013|year=2007|isbn=978-0-275-98821-0|publisher=Praeger Perspectives|page=33|editor1=Albisa, Catherine |editor2=Martha F. Davis |editor3=Cynthia Soohoo }} Rockwell noted that this painting was not popular in Europe: "The Europeans sort of resented it because it wasn't freedom from want, it was overabundance, the table was so loaded down with food." Outside the United States, this overabundance was the common perception.{{cite book|title=Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People|isbn=0-8109-6392-2|chapter=The Four Freedoms|last1=Hennessey|first1=Maureen Hart|first2=Anne|last2=Knutson|year=1999|page=[https://archive.org/details/normanrockwellpi00henn/page/102 102]|publisher=Harry N. Abrams, Inc. with High Museum of Art and Norman Rockwell Museum|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/normanrockwellpi00henn/page/102}} However, Richard Halpern says the painting not only displays overabundance of food, but also of "family, conviviality, and security", and opines that "overabundance rather than mere sufficiency is the true answer to want." He parallels the emotional nourishment provided by the image to that of the food nourishment that it depicts, remarking that the picture is noticeably inviting. However, by depicting the table with nothing but empty plates and white dishes on white linen, Rockwell may have been invoking the Puritan origins of the Thanksgiving holiday.{{cite book| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=FwF-AWzsLIYC&pg=PA72|title=Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence|access-date=November 28, 2013| year= 2006| isbn=0-226-31440-5|publisher=University of Chicago Press|page=72| last= Halpern| first= Richard}}

To art critic Robert Hughes, the painting represents the theme of family continuity, virtue, homeliness, and abundance without extravagance in a Puritan tone, as confirmed by the modest beverage choice of water.{{cite book|title=American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America|url=https://archive.org/details/americanvisionse0000hugh|url-access=registration|last = Hughes| first= Robert|author-link=Robert Hughes (critic)|isbn=0-679-42627-2|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|year=1997|chapter=The Empire of Signs|pages=[https://archive.org/details/americanvisionse0000hugh_i3i7]}} Historian Lizabeth Cohen says that by depicting this freedom as a celebration in the private family home rather than a worker with a job or a government protecting the hungry and homeless, Rockwell suggests that ensuring this freedom was not as much a government responsibility as something born from participation in the mass consumer economy.

One of the notable and artistically challenging elements of the image is Rockwell's use of white-on-white: white plates sitting on a white tablecloth. Art critic Deborah Solomon describes this as "one of the most ambitious plays of white-against-white since Whistler's Symphony in White, No. 1". Solomon further describes the work as "a new level of descriptive realism. Yet, the painting doesn't feel congested or fussy; it is open and airy in the center. Extensive passages of white paint nicely frame the individual faces."

Jim Martin, positioned in the lower right, gives a coy and perhaps mischievous glance back at the viewer.{{cite book|title=American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell|chapter=Fifteen: The Four Freedoms (May 1942 to May 1943)|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|year=2013|last=Solomon|first=Deborah|isbn=978-0-374-11309-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/americanmirrorli0000solo/page/210 210]|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/americanmirrorli0000solo/page/210}} He is a microcosm of the entire scene in which no one appears to be giving thanks in a traditional manner of a Thanksgiving dinner. Solomon finds it a departure from previous depictions of Thanksgiving in that the participants do not lower their heads or raise their hands in the traditional poses of prayer. She sees it as an example of treating American traditions in both sanctified and casual ways.{{cite web|publisher=Smithsonian Magazine|url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/inside-americas-great-romance-with-norman-rockwell-22055/|last= Solomon| first= Deborah|access-date=November 27, 2013|date=October 2013|title=Inside America's Great Romance With Norman Rockwell}} Theologian David Brown sees gratitude as implicit in the painting,{{cite book| first= David| last= Brown|title=God and Grace of Body: Sacrament in Ordinary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m_pT5VT9FfwC&pg=PA183|date=February 3, 2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-959996-7|page=183|access-date=August 21, 2014}} while Kenneth Bendiner writes that Rockwell was mindful of the Last Supper and that the painting's perspective echoes its rendition by Tintoretto.{{cite book| first= Kenneth| last= Bendiner|title=Food in Painting: From the Renaissance to the Present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ygcrmSmQqRkC&pg=PA191|year=2004|publisher=Reaktion Books|isbn=978-1-86189-213-3|page=191|access-date=August 21, 2014}}

{{Clear}}

{{see also|Carlos Bulosan}}

Freedom from Want was published with an essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the Four Freedoms series. Bulosan's essay spoke on behalf of those enduring domestic socioeconomic hardships rather than sociopolitical hardships abroad, and it thrust him into prominence.{{refn|The essay is considered one of the author's most notable works and is compared to John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.|group="nb"}} As he neared his thirtieth birthday, the Philippine immigrant and labor organizer{{cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J6oNkrcpi7cC&pg=PA204|title=The Power of Culture: Critical Essays in American History|access-date=November 30, 2013|year=1993 |isbn=0-226-25955-2| page=204|author=Westbrook, Robert B.|chapter=Fighting for the American Family|editor=Fox, Richard Wightman and T. J. Jackson Lears |publisher=University of Chicago Press}} Bulosan was experiencing a life that was not consistent with the theme Rockwell depicted in his version of Freedom from Want. Unknown as a writer, he was subsisting as a migrant laborer working intermittent jobs.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ocCSyXLcxygC&q=%22freedom+from+want%22+bulosan&pg=PA211|title=The Borderlands of Culture: Américo Paredes and the Transnational Imaginary|access-date=November 30, 2013|year=2006|author=Saldívar, Ramón David|isbn=0-8223-3789-4|publisher=Duke University Press Books|page=211}} Post editors tracked down the impoverished immigrant to request an essay contribution.{{cite book|title=Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms|author1=Murray, Stuart |author2=James McCabe |name-list-style=amp |isbn=0-517-20213-1|publisher=Gramercy Books|year=1993|page=62}} Bulosan rose to prominence during World War II when the Commonwealth of the Philippines, a United States territory, was occupied by Japan. To many Americans, Bulosan's essay marked his introduction, and his name was thereafter well recognized.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pv-BYdnRXJYC&q=%22freedom+from+want%22+bulosan&pg=PA50|title=Five Faces of Exile: The Nation and Filipino American Intellectuals|access-date=November 29, 2013|publisher=Stanford University Press|year=2005|isbn=0-8047-5121-8|page=50|author=Espiritu, Augusto Fauni}} The essay was lost by The Post, and Bulosan, who had no carbon copy, had to track down the only draft of the essay at a bar in Tacoma.

Freedom from Want had previously been less entwined in the standard liberalism philosophies of the western world than the other three freedoms (speech, fear, and religion); this freedom added economic liberty as a societal aspiration.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oNKyvL7ccB4C&pg=PR21|title=Realism for the Masses: Aesthetics, Popular Front Pluralism, and U.S. Culture, 1935–1947|access-date=November 30, 2013|year=2009|isbn=978-1-60473-123-1|page=XXI|author=Vials, Chris|publisher=University Press of Mississippi}} In his essay, Bulosan treats negative liberties as positive liberties by suggesting that Americans be "given equal opportunity to serve themselves and each other according to their needs and abilities", an echo of Karl Marx's "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs".{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nMdZeP-6oGQC&pg=PA307|title=Regionalists on the Left: Radical Voices from the American West|access-date=November 29, 2013|year=2013|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=978-0-8061-4340-8|page=307|author=Steiner, Michael C.}} In the final paragraph of the essay, the phrase "The America we hope to see is not merely a physical but also a spiritual and intellectual world" describes an egalitarian America. In a voice likened to Steinbeck's in works such as The Grapes of Wrath, Bulosan's essay spoke up for those who struggled to survive in the capitalist democracy and was regarded as "haunting and sharp" against the backdrop of Rockwell's feast of plenty. It proposed that while citizens had obligations to the state, the state had an obligation to provide a basic level of subsistence. Unlike Roosevelt, Bulosan presented the case that the New Deal had not already granted freedom from want as it did not guarantee Americans the essentials of life.

File:ASwinginChristmas.jpg's 2008 Christmas album entitled A Swingin' Christmas (Featuring The Count Basie Big Band) parodies Freedom from Want.|alt=Tony Bennett standing at the head of the table during a holiday meal gathering of over a dozen men as the turkey arrives.]]

• The painting was used as the 1946 book cover for Norman Rockwell, Illustrator, written during the prime of Rockwell's career when he was regarded as America's most popular illustrator.{{cite book|title=Norman Rockwell, Illustrator|publisher=Watson-Guptill Publications|last= Guptill| first= Arthur L.|year=1972|edition=seventh|pages= cover, vi, 140–149}} This image's iconic status has led to parody and satire.
• MAD magazine #39 (May 1958) presented a magazine satire called "The Saturday Evening Pest",{{Cite web|title=MAD Magazine #39 • USA • 1st Edition - New York|url=https://madtrash.com/item/012510039/#|access-date=2021-10-16|website=MAD Trash|language=en-US}} which featured a parody of Freedom from Want on the cover. In the parody, the family's circumstances are far from ideal.{{Cite web|last=McGowan|first=Bob|date=2017-07-26|title=The Art of the Post: The Post's Rockwell and MAD's Drucker: Two Great American Artists|url=https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/07/art-post-posts-rockwell-mads-drucker-two-great-american-artists/|access-date=2021-10-16|website=The Saturday Evening Post|language=en-US}}
• New York painter Frank Moore re-created Rockwell's all-white Americans with an ethnically diverse family, as Freedom to Share (1994), in which the turkey platter brims over with health care supplies.{{cite news|last=Green|first=Penelope|title=Mirror, Mirror; Rockwell, Irony-Free|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06EFDC1131F93BA15753C1A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all|access-date=October 13, 2010 |newspaper=The New York Times |date= October 28, 2001}}
• Among the better known reproductions is Mickey and Minnie Mouse entertaining their cartoon family with a festive turkey. Several political cartoons have invoked this image.
• The painting was reenacted in the May 16, 2012, season 3 "Tableau Vivant" episode of the comedy television series Modern Family.{{cite web |url=http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Norman-Rockwell-revival-at-Crocker-4001458.php|title=Norman Rockwell revival at Crocker|access-date=November 9, 2012|date=November 4, 2012|work=San Francisco Chronicle|author=Winn, Steven}}
• Another imitation of the work is the cover art to Tony Bennett's 2008 Christmas album A Swingin' Christmas (Featuring The Count Basie Big Band).{{cite web |url= http://www.allmusic.com/album/a-swingin-christmas-mw0000799732|title=Tony Bennett: A Swingin' Christmas |access-date=June 12, 2014|publisher=AllMusic }}{{cite web|url=http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2008/12/tony-bennett-featuring-the-count-basie-big-band-a.html|title=Tony Bennett featuring the Count Basie Big Band: A Swingin' Christmas|access-date=June 12, 2014|date=December 16, 2008|work=Paste|last= Edgar| first= Sean}} The parody includes all 13 members of Count Basie's band.{{cite web|url=http://jazztimes.com/articles/20910-tony-bennett-that-holiday-feeling|title=Tony Bennett: That Holiday Feeling|access-date=June 12, 2014|date=December 2008|work=JazzTimes|last=Loudon|first=Christopher|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151021012412/http://jazztimes.com/articles/20910-tony-bennett-that-holiday-feeling|archive-date=October 21, 2015|url-status=dead}}
• The cover to DC Comics JSA Issue 54 was also an homage to this image with various superheroes such as Superman, Power Girl, and Wonder Woman.{{Cite web |title=GCD :: Issue :: JSA #54 |url=https://www.comics.org/issue/205689/ |access-date=2023-10-08 |website=www.comics.org}}{{Cite web |title=JSA Issue 54 Cover by Pacheco and Merino - Virtue, Vice and Pumpkin Pie, in Malvin V's DC Universe Original Art Pages Comic Art Gallery Room |url=https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1960804 |access-date=2023-10-08 |website=www.comicartfans.com |language=en}}
• A promotional poster for the 2018 film Deadpool 2 replaced the painting's characters with characters from the film.{{cite web|url=http://collider.com/deadpool-2-poster/#ryan-reynolds|title=Deadpool 2 new promotional poster|access-date=October 10, 2017|date=October 10, 2017|work=collider.com}}

• A snapshot at the end of the 2002 Disney animated film Lilo & Stitch shows the film's characters seated at a Thanksgiving table, echoing the painting.{{cite book|first1= R.C. |last1= Neighbors| first2= Sandy| last2= Rankin|title=The Galaxy Is Rated G: Essays on Children's Science Fiction Film and Television|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2g3tykXo_DgC&pg=PA25|date=July 27, 2011 |publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-8801-8|page=25}}
• In the 2009 film The Blind Side, when the Tuohy family gathers at the Thanksgiving table, the scene is transformed into a replica of the famous painting.{{cite web|url=http://www.icepop.com/blind-side-film-facts/|title=Michael Oher Tells A Whole Different Story About 'The Blind Side'|access-date=June 19, 2018|date=August 9, 2017|work=icepop.com|archive-date=August 19, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180819123112/http://www.icepop.com/blind-side-film-facts/|url-status=dead}}

{{Reflist|group="nb"}}

{{Reflist|33em}}

57. Lloyd, C., Levitan, S., & Ko , E. (2012, May 16). Tableau Vivant. Modern Family . Season 3 Episode 23.

{{Commons category|Freedom from Want}}

• [https://www.nrm.org/2016/11/freedom-want-1943/ Freedom From Want] at Norman Rockwell Museum
• [https://www.belart-gallery.com/post/fun-facts-about-norman-rockwell-s-thanksgiving-painting Fun Facts About Norman Rockwell's Thanksgiving Painting]

{{Norman Rockwell|state=expanded}}

{{Thanksgiving}}

Category:1943 paintings

Category:Four Freedoms

Category:Paintings by Norman Rockwell

Category:Thanksgiving (United States)

Category:Works originally published in The Saturday Evening Post

Category:World War II and the media

Category:Food and drink paintings

Category:Birds in art

Category:Paintings about death