In the midst of World War II, Norman Rockwell spent days inside the White House, invited by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s press secretary to observe the steady procession of people seeking an audience with the commander in chief.
The result was a four-panel drawing titled “So You Want to See the President!” that depicted visitors including two U.S. Senators, a Scottish military officer in tartan and Miss America. In the panels, watchful Secret Service agents stand among White House guests. Reporters gather around the press secretary, Stephen T. Early, shown with a pipe clenched in his teeth.
Those images appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1943 and the original line drawings and oil on paper renderings were given by Rockwell to Mr. Early, whom Harry S. Truman described as Roosevelt’s ever-present “secretary, friend, and sagacious adviser.” Later, a family member lent them to the White House, where they were on display for 44 years, sometimes in a hallway near the Oval Office.
Now, descendants of Mr. Early are set to auction the roughly 21-by-28-inch works, the next stop for drawings whose unusual path has included a family dispute over ownership and two federal court rulings. William Nile Elam IV, a great-grandson of Mr. Early, said the family was proud of his service with Roosevelt and of the drawings that depict that period.
“It’s a bittersweet moment,” he said, of the decision to consign the works. He added that he and other family members hoped the drawings would wind up with an owner who would put them on display “where they can be seen and enjoyed.”
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