American Iconography

Back on the market after more than a decade, Rockwell’s A Scout is Loyal is expected to fetch big bucks

The excitement in Morgan Martin’s voice is palpable when he talks about the star of Bonhams’ November 19 American Art sale and rightly so. Norman Rockwell’s 1940 oil A Scout is Loyal, on the market for the first time since 2013 when it sold for just over $4 million to a private collector in a Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, is expected to fetch a similar sum.

The piece, rich with the iconography of American patriotism, was painted during Rockwell’s most significant period of creative output against the backdrop of World War II. Martin, Bonhams’ head of American art, says, “A Scout is Loyal is a tour de force by the artist and was created at the height of his influence on American culture, as the work was painted 1940 and reproduced on the cover of Boy’s Life in 1942. The iconographic elements of the work are particularly representative of the time when it was created, as World War II was on our doorstep and patriotism was at an all time high. Works like this rarely come to market, so clients are quite eager to see it and we expect it to sell for the seven figures.”