These Norman Rockwell sketches once hung in the White House. On Friday, they’re up for auction

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House Historical Association He is bidding to buy back a series of sketches by American painter and illustrator Norman Rockwell that once hung in the West Wing but were put up for auction following a family dispute over ownership.

The association may face stiff competition as the opening bid is $2.5 million and auction house customers are lining up with bids.

Four sketches from the 1940s “So You Want to See the President!” It bears the title. and shows people from all walks of life hanging out in the White House lobby while waiting to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After a court fight over their ownership, they were put up for sale by the grandson of a White House official who received them as a gift from Rockwell.

The drawings will be sold by a Dallas-based auction house on Friday. In keeping with its mission to help collect and display artifacts representing American history and culture, including the history of the White House, the association hopes to prevail. He wants to add the drawing to the White House’s extensive collection of art, furniture and other items.

“They are very different from the other works of art on display in the West Wing,” said Anita McBride, who sits on the association’s board of directors.

‘Arsenal of democracy’

McBride remembers seeing the drawings in 1981 when he went to work in Ronald Reagan’s administration. He said staff are the “focal point” when taking visitors on tours. “People loved seeing the broad range and portrayal of Americans who had 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 human depiction of American democracy in action,” according to a description on the Heritage Auctions website.

The sketches show a variety of people—journalists, military officers, and even the Miss America Pageant winner and her publicist—waiting in luxurious-looking red chairs in the West Wing lobby to meet Roosevelt. A Secret Service agent stands guard in one of the scenes.

“In a way, it shows how FDR was always talking about the ‘arsenal of democracy’ and what makes the United States unique,” ​​said Matthew Costello, the association’s chief education officer. “An incredible set of visualizations.”

The auction house said the sketches are Rockwell’s only known collection of four interrelated paintings that he designed to tell a story.

Court resolves family property dispute

Rockwell gave the original drawings to Stephen Early, Roosevelt’s long-time press secretary, who is seen smoking a pipe in one drawing with reporters gathered around him. A family member delivered them to the White House in 1978, and they were displayed in the West Wing for more than four decades, sometimes in the corridor between press offices just steps from the Oval Office.

The family’s property dispute began when one of the press secretary’s sons, Thomas Early, watched a television interview in 2017. President Donald Trump He spied them on a wall in the White House, according to court records.

Stephen Early’s grandson, William Elam III, said that his mother received the drawings as a gift from her father, a former press secretary, before her death, and that ownership later passed to her.

The drawings had gone to the White House in 1978 under an agreement requiring the White House to return them to Elam upon request. The White House returned the drawings in 2022.

A federal appeals court resolved the dispute in May by upholding a lower court ruling in favor of Elam, according to court records.

Tough competition expected at auction

Bidding will start at $2.5 million and buyers are “ready and waiting to compete for this American icon,” Christina Rees, Heritage Auctions’ director of communications, said in an email. The auction house estimates the drawings will sell for between $4 million and $6 million.

That price tag could pose a hurdle for the White House Historical Society, which was founded in 1961 by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to help preserve the museum quality of the White House interior and educate the public. It is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that receives no government funding. It raises money mostly through private donations and merchandise sales, including its annual Christmas ornament.

The society did not say how much it was willing to spend, but McBride said the most it has ever paid for a painting in the past was $1.5 million for African-American artist Jacob Lawrence’s “The Builders” in 2007. This work, depicting hard-working men in shades of orange, red and brown, hangs in the Green Room of the White House.

McBride said he expects stiff competition for Rockwell’s work due to widespread interest in both Americana and the artist’s work. But the association’s mission is to hunt for art, furniture and other items it believes belong to the White House.

“We’re working hard to bring them back,” McBride said.