Rockwell's Paintings to Be Auctioned

choi

Two days ago, I published "Understudies." Today I made minor corrections:

Note:
(a)
(i) Many online English dictionaries contains "the hard way" and some other have "learn the hard way" or "find out the hard way."

I drop the letter s in the vern "contains" and add s to th end of "other" in "some other."
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Colin Moynihan, RockwellDrawings Will Go to Auction. New York Times, Oct 25, 2025, at page C1.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/ ... awings-auction.html

Quote:

(a) the first four paragraphs:

"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 US Senators [seated], 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.

(b) " 'So You Want to See the President!' will be offered for sale by Heritage Auctions during its Nov 14 sale of American art in Dallas. Heritage * * * saying they are his only known group of four interrelated works telling a single, continuous story.

"Heritage estimates the drawings will fetch $4 million to $6 million * * *

"An essay for the auction site notes symbolic representations within the panels. What is labeled the 'president's gas mask' hanging from a coat rack is a reminder of the vigilance in Washington, the essay says. It adds that by showing Senator Tom Connally, a Democrat from Texas, 'shoulder to shoulder' on a couch with Senator Warren R Austin, a Republican from Vermont, Rockwell was illustrating 'bipartisan unity at the height of the war.'

"The work also demonstrates the warm feelings that Rockwell had for Mr. Early. A handwritten inscription addressed to him by the artist reads “in gratitude for his great kindness.” In a letter to Rockwell dated Nov. 11, 1943, Mr. Early wrote: “I am as proud of these original sketches of yours as Churchill was of the RAF [Royal Air Force].”

"After Mr Early's death in 1951, the Rockwell works were a cherished heirloom, displayed in the Alexandria, Va, home of the press secretary's widow, Helen Wrenn Early, before being lent to the White House in 1978.

"The ownership dispute began in 2017 when Thomas A Early, a son of the former press secretary, was surprised to spot them on a White House wall while watching President Trump being interviewed on television, according to court papers. Some relatives later accused [Thomas] Early's nephew, William Nile Elam III, of promoting his own interests by secretly sending the drawings to the White House to 'launder' their ownership. The actual ownership, those relatives said, was shared among Stephen T Early's three children and, ultimately, their heirs.

"Mr Elam said in court papers that his mother, Helen Early Elam, received the drawings as a present from her father, the former press secretary, before his death. Ownership later passed to him, Mr Elam said. His mother lent the drawings to The White House, Mr Elam's lawyers said, as a way to keep them safe.

"The White House returned the drawings to the Elam family in 2022, while the disagreement continued.

"In 2023 a judge in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va, declared Mr Elam to be the owner of the drawings, writing that either he or his mother had had physical possession of them for 18 years before they went to The White House. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Richmond, affirmed that decision in May.

Note:
(a) Norman Rockwell's So You Want to See the President! Headlines Heritage's November 14 American Art Auction; The only known four-panel interrelated suite by Rockwell – a rare, unifying vision of American democracy – offered by the descendants of FDR's press secretary, Stephen T Early. Heritage Auctions, Oct 23, 2025 (press release).
https://www.ha.com/heritage-auct ... e-s-november-14-ame
(i) The surname Early can be
• Irish, from Modern and Old Irish adjective masculine moch early (feminine moiche, plural mocha);
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moch
• or English, from place names -- chiefly from Earley (Berkshire) -- all "derived from Old English earn eagle + lēah woodland clearing."
Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford Univ Press.
(ii) Heritage Auctions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_Auctions
(1962- ; based in Dallas, TX)

(b) The unpublished decision in
Elam v Early, 4th Circuit No. 23-2246, May 30, 2025.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6998948368782440745
("As many of us heard growing up, 'possession is nine-tenths of the law.' It turns out that this old saying reflects our law's acknowledgment that possession is often the best evidence of ownership. In adopting that presumption, Virginia [state] law, which controls this case [because federal law is silent (federal law is silent on many areas, including family and estate laws)], follows principles that date back to ancient Rome. And here, the district court found that Elam's possession of the Rockwells created a presumption of ownership, which the Earlys did not rebut")