Joseph Csatari American, 1929-2025

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In a career spanning more than 60 years, Joseph Csatari painted portraits of presidents, world leaders, celebrities and athletes, illustrations for more than 300 book and magazine covers, print advertisements, corporate works, and other paintings depicting the American scene.



Csatari is often described as the “heir to Norman Rockwell,” his mentor and friend with whom he worked for ten years as art director of Rockwell's Scout calendar paintings. Commissioned to be Rockwell’s successor as the official artist for the Boy Scouts of America in 1977, Csatari captures the spirit of hope, honor, and patriotism in his paintings. In recent years, Csatari has produced paintings commemorating the 100th anniversaries of World Scouting, the Boy Scouts of America, the Eagle Scout award, and the Order of the Arrow. During his long association with the BSA, he created more than 150 Scout-themed paintings and drawings.



Csatari’s illustrations have appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, Time, Reader’s Digest, McCall’s, Field & Stream, and Outdoor Life. He created book covers for such publishers as Simon & Schuster, Avon and Bantam Doubleday Dell. His corporate and advertising clients included Merrill Lynch, Nabisco, Roy Rogers Inc., Coleman, State Farm Insurance, Taft Broadcasting, and Scotts Miricle-Gro. His oil painting commemorating the MacArthur Bowl and the first college football game in 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton hangs in the National Collegiate Football Hall of Fame. Csatari also received commissions for two United States Postal Service stamps, “Seeing for Me” (1979), which honors the Seeing Eye Guide Dog Program, and “The Gift of Self” (1981), to commemorate the centennial of the American Red Cross.

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Csatari was a prolific portrait artist. He made corporate oil paintings of dozens of prominent individuals, including President Dwight D. Eisenhower, First Lady Betty Ford, Sanford McDonnell, Thomas Watson, and James Whitmore. He loved making renderings of his family and friends in oil, pastel, watercolor, charcoal pencil. 



Csatari’s artwork has been recreated on collectible plates, in figurines and medallions. His paintings have toured nationally and were displayed alongside Norman Rockwell's at the National Scouting Museum for decades. 

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He had received numerous awards throughout his career, including the Award of Excellence in Editorial Art from the Art Directors Club of NJ, a Gold Medal for Editorial Art Directing from The Society of Illustrators of New York, the Distinguished American Award from the American Hungarian Foundation, and the Boy Scouts of America’s Silver Buffalo and Silver Beaver Awards.

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Csatari was a member of The Society of Illustrators of New York, the Northern Ohio Illustrators Society, the American Hungarian Foundation, and the Bill Denny/Rutgers Chapter of the National Football Foundation.

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Csatari's book Norman Rockwell's Boy Scouts of America, co-authored with son Jeff, contains images of all of the Rockwell and Csatari Scout paintings. It was published by Dorling-Kindersley Books in 2009.

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