There was a time when the U.S. president existed at a remove from public life, a figure only glimpsed through newspaper quotes and radio soundbites. Franklin Delano Roosevelt may have revolutionized White House communications with his homely fireside chats, but for his long-serving press secretary, Stephen Early, the president still seemed inaccessible to the average American. So in 1943, Early invited the nation’s idealist-in-chief, Norman Rockwell, to photograph and sketch the parade of people waiting to meet FDR. In fact, Rockwell did so twice, with his first efforts destroyed in a summer fire at his Vermont studio.
In November of that year, the suite of four interconnected paintings appeared under the caption “So You Want to See the President!” in , a wholesome and patriotic magazine then among the most widely read in America. After publication, Rockwell gave the paintings to Early, but following the press officer’s untimely death in 1951, they went to his daughter and were later lent to the White House between 1978 and 2022, becoming an ever presence in the West Wing.
Norman Rockwell’s “So You Want to See The President!” Photo: Bruce M. White. Courtesy of the White House Historical Association.
Last year, the White House Historical Association acquired the panels at auction for $7.25 million, the most the nonprofit has ever spent on an artwork. In time for America 250 celebrations, “So You Want to See the President!” is now on display at the Association’s headquarters around the corner from the White House, the first time they have been shown publicly.
“It’s a portrait of American democracy itself,” Stewart McLaurin, president of the association, said in a statement. “We are honored to share this defining piece of White House history with visitors from across the country and around the world, especially during America’s Semiquincentennial. Its scenes remind us that the White House belongs to the people.”
Norman Rockwell, (1943). Photo courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
This reminder was precisely the point of Early’s commission. With characteristic realism and folksy charm, Rockwell offers the various components of American society waiting in the red-leather seating of the White House antechamber.
In the first panel, Early greets the ”Gentlemen of the Press,” a scrum of two-tone spectators and tobacco pipes; in the second, a kilted Scottish officer takes a pew beside Miss America and a dopey publicity man; in the third, senators Connally and Austin cross party lines with convivial conversation; and in the final panel, another type of rival—the leaders of the army, navy, and marines—huddle up close together. As for the main man himself, he is there but only barely, a bright face glimpsed through a door opening onto the Oval Office in the corner of the final panel.
Fourth panel of Norman Rockwell, (1943). Photo courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
The reappearance of “So You Want to See the President!” also comes in the wake of a heated family feud over the Rockwell works. After the death of Early’s daughter, Helen, they passed to her son William Elam. In time, Elam lent them to the White House and in 2017, another of Early’s descendants spotted them on television and sued Elam, claiming had loaned them without permission. In 2023, a federal court ruled that the paintings had been gifted by Early during his lifetime to Elam, closing the case.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
