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CNN Live Today

'Rosie the Riveter' Sells for $5 Mil

Aired May 23, 2002 - 14:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: One of the best-known figures of the second world war made history in the art front this week. "Rosie the Riveter" sold at auction for just about $5 million, by far the most ever paid for a work by Norman Rockwell.

Rosie was fictitious, but her face belongs to that of a New Hampshire woman who is 78 now, and proud of her brush with immortality. Karen Anderson, of our affiliate in Manchester, WMUR, has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAREN ANDERSON,WMUR REPORTER (voice-over): She was the factory worker that symbolized American women going to work to help win World War II. Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter, from the Saturday Evening "Post." The year was 1943. The subject was Mary Doyle Keefe.

MARY DOYLE KEEFE, ROSIE THE RIVETER: It was just a privilege to be able to sit for him.

ANDERSON: Keefe was just 19 years old when Rockwell, a neighbor in Arlington, Vermont, asked her to pose for photographs to use for his painting. She wore the clothes and even held the riveter. But was she really that strong?

KEEFE: Were my arms like that? No, far from it, no. He made -- from the photographs he took, then he cuts out what he wanted. So I was much slimmer than that. I was only about a hundred pounds in those days.

ANDERSON: Rockwell later apologized for beefing her up, and wrote that she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Keefe earned $10 for sitting for the pictures. The painting was just sold to its new owner for $4.9 million.

KEEFE: I would think that Norman Rockwell himself would have turned over in his grave. Because I know he got -- he got thousands of dollars for many of his paintings. But I think this is the biggest, as far as I know, the largest amount.

ANDERSON: Keefe's life was different than Rosie's. She worked as a dental hygienist, got married and had four children. But she's glad to see the nation's pride in Rosie and women's wartime work remain strong. Karen Anderson, WMUR, News 9. (END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: Great story.

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