Willie Gillis

Willie Gillis, Jr. (more commonly simply Willie Gillis) is a fictional character created by Norman Rockwell for a series of World War II paintings that appeared on the covers of eleven issues of The Saturday Evening Post between 1941 and 1946. With the rank of private, Gillis was an everyman whose career was tracked on the cover of the Post from induction through discharge without being depicted in battle. Gillis and his girlfriend were modeled by two of Rockwell's acquaintances.

Although Gillis was not exclusively used on Post covers, the Willie Gillis series of covers was a hallmark of Rockwell's wartime work. In Rockwell's prime and at the peak of its popularity, the Post had a subscribership of 4 million, and many of these subscribers believed Gillis was a real person. Rockwell's wartime art, including Willie Gillis, the Four Freedoms and Rosie the Riveter, contributed to the success of the wartime bond sales efforts.

Since 1999 the Gillis series has been included in two major Rockwell tours. From 1999 to 2002 it toured as part of a Rockwell Post cover art retrospective, and from 2006 to 2010 it toured as part of a 1940s World War II Rockwell art exhibition.

From 1916 through his John F. Kennedy memorial cover on December 16, 1963, Rockwell created 321 magazine covers for the Post, which was the most popular American magazine of the first half of the 20th century with a subscribership that reached a peak of 4 million. Rockwell illustrated American life during World War I and World War II in 34 of his cover illustrations, and he illustrated 33 Post covers in total during World War II. Some of the war art involved American life. During much of the first half of the 1940s, Rockwell's cover illustrations focused on the human side of the war. Rockwell encouraged support of the war efforts during World War II by means of his covers that endorsed war bonds, encouraged women to work, and encouraged men to enlist in the service. His World War II illustrations used themes of patriotism, longing, shifting gender roles, reunion, love, work, community and family during wartime to promote the war. In his role as a magazine illustrator during times of war, Rockwell draws comparisons to Winslow Homer, an American Civil War illustrator for Harper's Weekly. Rockwell's artistic expressions were said to have helped the adoption of the goal of the Four Freedoms as set forth by United States President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address. His painting series, the Four Freedoms, toured in a war bond effort that raised $132 million.

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