The "Rosie the Riveter" Model Has Died

(Image credit: Getty)

By Chelsea Peng 2015-04-23T09:45:55Z

Mary Doyle Keefe, the model for Norman Rockwell's iconic Rosie the Riveter painting, died in Connecticut on Tuesday. She was 92.

According to the Associated Press, Keefe posed for Rockwell when she was a 19-year-old telephone operator living in Vermont. Twenty-four years later, after the image appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, the artist wrote Keefe, calling her the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and apologizing for exaggerating her shoulders and arms.

The painting—not to be confused with the more stylized, "We can do it" version—became a symbol of wartime resilience and the millions of American women who worked on the home front during World War II.

Keefe, who worked as a dental hygienist, is survived by her four children.