Willie Gillis

[1] Gillis was an everyman with the rank of private[2] whose career was tracked on the cover of the Post from induction through discharge without being depicted in battle.

[1] Rockwell was in his prime, and the Post was at the peak of its popularity with a subscribership of four million; many of those subscribers believed that Gillis was a real person.

[7] Willie Gillis was a freckle-faced All-American character who served as one of Rockwell's main coverboys during World War II.

[15] The Gillis character is widely referred to as an everyman who epitomized the typical American World War II soldier.

[16][17][18][19] Rockwell created Gillis in 1940 as the European Theater of World War II was escalating and Americans were enlisting or being drafted into the armed forces under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940.

[6] Gillis was truly seen as the typical G.I.,[19] 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.

[2] Ten subsequent covers depicted Gillis in a variety of roles: at church in uniform, holding his hat on his lap; the soldier on K.P.

Bill:[1][2] "We know that things ended well for Gillis, though; his final cover in 1946 showed the young man stretched in a windowsill smoking a pipe and wearing penny loafers, studying at Middlebury College.

[24] This final component of the series, Willie Gillis in College, engenders much critical review because it is perceived to represent a transformation of character.

Rockwell donated the painting to the Gardner High School for the graduating class, where it hung in the principal's office until 2000.

[32] He met Rockwell to pose the first time when he was 15, and he stood 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) tall and had a lock of hair that dropped down on his forehead.

[20] Buck had been exempted from the military draft, but he felt that serving his country was his patriotic duty and enlisted as a naval aviator in 1943.

[36] The woman who posed for illustrations of Gillis's girlfriend was included in the 90-minute PBS American Masters series film Norman Rockwell: Painting America.

[33] From 2006 through 2010 Gillis appeared along with the Four Freedoms and Rosie The Riveter in a travelling exhibition entitled Norman Rockwell in the 1940s: A View of the American Homefront.