WASHINGTON — White House Historical Association is bidding to return a series of sketches by American artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell that once hung in the West Wing but ended up at auction after a family dispute over their ownership.
The association could face stiff competition as the starting price is $2.5 million and auction house clients are lining up with offers.
The four 1940s-era sketches are titled “So You Want to See the President!” and depict people from all walks of life hanging out in the White House lobby waiting to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They were put up for sale by the grandson of a White House official, who received them as a gift from Rockwell after a legal battle over their ownership was settled.
The sketches will be sold by an auction house in Dallas on Friday. In fulfilling its mission to assist the White House in collecting and displaying artifacts representing American history and culture, including the history of the White House, the association hopes to win. He wants to add the drawing to the White House's extensive collection of art, furniture and other items.
“They are so different from any other piece of art on display in the West Wing,” said Anita McBride, a member of the association's board of directors.
McBride remembers seeing the drawings in 1981 when she went to work for Ronald Reagan's administration. They were the “focal point” when staff took visitors on tours, she said. “People just loved seeing” “the crowd and the image of Americans having access to their president.”
Created in 1943 and published in the Saturday Evening Post during World War II, the series “offers an intimate and deeply humane portrayal of American democracy in action,” according to a description on the Heritage Auctions website.
The sketches depict a variety of people—journalists, military personnel and even the Miss America pageant winner and her publicist—waiting to meet Roosevelt in plush red chairs in the West Wing lobby. In one scene, a Secret Service agent stands on duty.
“In some ways, it kind of illustrates how Roosevelt always talked about the 'arsenal of democracy' and what makes the United States unique,” said Matthew Costello, the association's director of education. “This is an incredible series of renderings.”
The sketches represent Rockwell's only known collection of four interconnected paintings that he intended to tell a story, the auction house said.
Rockwell gave the original drawings to Stephen Early, Roosevelt's longtime press secretary, who can be seen in the drawing smoking a pipe while reporters crowd around him. A family member gave them to the White House in 1978, and they were displayed throughout the West Wing for more than four decades, sometimes in the hallway between the press offices, which are just steps from the Oval Office.
The family dispute over ownership began in 2017 when Thomas Earley, one of the press secretary's sons, watched a television interview with President Donald Trump and spotted them on the wall of the White House, according to court records.
William Elam III, Stephen Early's grandson, said his mother received the drawings as a gift from her father, a former press secretary, before his death, and that ownership later passed to him.
The illustrations were sent to the White House in 1978 under an agreement that required the White House to return them to Elam upon request. The White House returned the drawings in 2022.
A federal appeals court settled the dispute in May, upholding a lower court ruling in Elam's favor, according to court records.
Bidding will start at $2.5 million, and clients are “ready and waiting to compete for this American icon,” Christina Reece, director of public relations for Heritage Auctions, said in an email. The auction house estimated that the drawings would sell for $4 million to $6 million.
That price could be a deal breaker for the White House Historical Association, which was created in 1961 by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy to help preserve the museum-quality interior of the White House and educate the public. It is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that receives no government funding. He raises money primarily through private donations and the sale of merchandise, including annual Christmas decorations.
The association has not disclosed how much it is willing to spend, but the most it has ever paid for a painting in the past was $1.5 million for African-American artist Jacob Lawrence's “Builders” in 2007, McBride said. This work depicts hardworking men in orange, red and brown colors and hangs in the Green Room of the White House.
McBride said she expects stiff competition for Rockwell's work due to widespread interest in America as well as the artist's work. But the association's mission is to take on art, furniture and other items it believes belong in the White House.
“We’re trying our best to get them back,” McBride said.
