Girl with Picnic Basket Going Swimming by Norman Rockwell

June 15, 1929 Issue of The Saturday Evening Post

Girl with Picnic Basket Going Swimming, a Norman Rockwell painting, appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post published June 15, 1929. This is another timeless favorite of Rockwell collectors, a classic for the ages.

An alternate title for this illustration is No Swimming.

This painting was Rockwell's sixth cover for The Post in 1929. In 1929, there were eleven Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post covers published.

This was also Rockwell's 117th cover illustration out of 322 Rockwell painted for the Post. Rockwell's career with the Post spanned 47 years, from his first cover illustration, Boy With Baby Carriage in 1916 to his last, Portrait of John F. Kennedy, in 1963.

The original oil on canvas painting is part of the collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum of Stockbridge Massachusetts. It was a gift from Jeanie Kull Low and John T.C. Low to the museum. Read more about it here.

Jeanie Kull Low was the model for the painting.

This painting also appears in four Rockwell commentary books. It appears:

• on page 37 of The Norman Rockwell Album,
• as illustration 43 of Norman Rockwell's America by Christopher Finch,
• as illustration 242 of Norman Rockwell: Artist and Illustrator by Thomas Buechner and
• on page 114 of Norman Rockwell, A Definitive Catalogue by Laurie Norton Moffatt.

I have seen pristine original copies of this magazine cover sell for well over one hundred dollars on eBay. And to think it only cost five cents originally! And it was mint condition then, too.

Girl with Picnic Basket Going Swimming

This classic Norman Rockwell painting shows a young girl averting her eyes as she walks past the old swimming hole.

This painting is a continuation of the narrative that began with the first No Swimming painting from the June 4, 1921 Saturday Evening Post. Or maybe it is a prologue to that painting.

One can almost see the boys brazenly waving at her from the swimming hole as she walks past.

Maybe it is her father or grandfather that owns the pond that the boys are swimming in. Maybe she will get them in trouble by telling on them.

The details of the painting are just as fascinating as the story could be.

We cannot see what she carries in the picnic basket, but we can safely assume that she brought her lunch. Perhaps she was hoping for a quiet lunch by the pond.

That plan was dashed when she rounded the corner and saw the "No Swimming" sign. We and she can see two straw hats on the sign and one at its foot. We can see a pair of dungarees with a slingshot hanging out of the back pocket. We also see a pair of shirts hanging on the sign.

Are those boys wearing any clothes at all?

So the girl will just have to go somewhere else for her picnic lunch. Maybe she will just go back home... where her father will ask why she is not enjoying the pond.

Uh-oh. Then the cat will be out of the bag. Father will quickly run those boys off.

That sounds like a plan.