The White House Historical Association has secured the return of a celebrated Norman Rockwell series with a record-setting $5.8 million bid at auction.
The four sketches, created in the 1940s and titled So You Want to See the President!, had long hung in the West Wing before being removed in 2022 amid a family dispute over ownership. According to The Washington Times, the works had been entrusted to a White House official decades ago and were later consigned to auction by that officials grandson, prompting the association to move aggressively to reclaim them.
Rockwells illustrations depict a cross-section of American lifejournalists, military officers, and even a Miss America Pageant winner with her publicistwaiting on plush red chairs for an audience with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The scenes, originally conceived as a narrative sequence, underscore Rockwells enduring appeal as a chronicler of everyday Americans and the institutions that serve them.
The associations president, Stewart McLaurin, signaled that the acquisition is intended to serve a broader educational mission rather than simply expand a private collection. The group will share more about the future of this significant and historic work, he said in a statement, adding, We look forward to utilizing this acquisition to teach White House history for generations to come.
Matthew Costello, the associations chief education officer, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that officials are weighing a public display at The Peoples House: A White House Experience. The interactive education center, which opened in September 2024, was designed to give Americans access to White House history without the layers of bureaucracy and security that now surround the actual building.
Board member Anita McBride told the AP that our hope is to have it displayed at The Peoples House for a while. She noted that the association has been thrilled with visitor turnout in the 14 months since the center opened, suggesting strong public appetite for tangible connections to the nations past.
If we are successful in getting this and can bring it on display for a period of time, I think that would be terrific for people to see this, she said. For an institution that relies on private philanthropy rather than taxpayer dollars, such high-profile acquisitions help reinforce a civic-minded alternative to government-driven cultural programming.
The $5.8 million price tag is the largest single expenditure in the associations history, which maintains an extensive collection of art, furniture, and artifacts reflecting American heritage. Previously, its most expensive purchase was the $1.5 million acquisition in 2007 of The Builders by African American artist Jacob Lawrence, a vivid portrayal of laboring men in orange, red, and brown tones that now hangs in the White House Green Room.
Heritage Auctions, the Dallas-based firm that handled the sale, described the Rockwell series as his only known set of four interrelated paintings conceived specifically to tell a unified story, first published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1943. Their return to the White House orbit restores a visual narrative of citizens seeking access to the presidencyan image that resonates in an era when many Americans feel increasingly distant from Washingtons political class.
Founded in 1961 by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, the White House Historical Association was created to preserve the mansions museum-quality interior and to educate the public about its history. As a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that receives no government funding, its latest purchase underscores a private, voluntary commitment to safeguarding national heritage at a time when public institutions are often politicized and taxpayer resources stretched thin.
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