NPC Sells Rockwell Painting for $10.2 Million

The National Press Club today sold its Norman Rockwell Painting, "Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor," for $10.2 million at Christie's.

Seventy percent of the proceeds will go to the Club, 30 percent will go to the non-profit National Press Club Journalism Institute. Christie's expected the artwork to sell for $10 million to $15 million.

The sale is fantastic news for the Club and the Institute because both entities will have additional resources to carry out their missions for many years to come.

The Club is now in a better position to care for the facility, offer world-class programs and support and grow membership. The Institute expands its ability to carry out its mission for journalists — from training those who have lost jobs to fighting for a free press worldwide.

The Rockwell painting appeared in the Saturday Evening Post on May 25, 1946. The Club's newsletter in 1962 and 1963 refers to the artwork as gift from the Saturday Evening Post. When Rockwell himself spoke at the Club in 1967, the moderator of the event made reference to the painting.

The boards the Club and Institute voted Oct. 1 to sell the artwork. The vote followed months of research that determined hundreds of thousands of dollars would be required to secure the artwork after its value spiked in 2014. The spending would not have been a wise use of resources, Club and Institute leaders concluded.

For years the artwork hung outside the Club's members-only bar/restaurant on the 14th floor, the Reliable Source. An exact replica of the painting since Nov. 16 has hung in the same place the original used to be.

The sale of the painting of a small-town America newsroom in the 20th Century will sustain missions of the Club and Institute to support journalism for many decades to come in the 21st Century. What a great legacy for Norman Rockwell.